Rivan Codex Series

by Eddings, David

  "Lelldorin will be there," Garion said, "and so will I. We won't let you fall down or faint or run away."

  "Might I not have a few small flowers?" Nerina asked in a plaintive voice.

  Garion looked at her. "Certainly," he replied in a deceptively mild tone. "Hold out your hand." He then began to create lilies -rapidly- popping them out of empty air and depositing them one after another in the startled lady's hand.

  "Are they the right color, Nerina?" he asked her. "I can change them if you like -purple, perhaps, or chartreuse, or maybe bright blue would suit you."

  And then he finally decided that he was not really getting anywhere. They were going to continue to raise objections for as long as they possibly could. They were both so accustomed to living in the very heart of their colossal tragedy that they were unwilling -unable even- to give up their mournful entertainment. The solution, of necessity, was going to be entirely up to him. Knowing that it was a trifle overdramatic, but considering the mental capabilities of the two involved, he drew his sword. "We are all now going directly to the chapel," he announced, "and the two of you are going to get married." He pointed at the splintered door with the sword. "Now march!" he commanded.

  And so it was that one of the great tragic love stories of all time came at last to a happy ending. Mandorallen and his Nerina were married that very afternoon, with Garion quite literally standing over them with flaming sword to insure that no last-minute hitches could interrupt.

  On the whole, Garion was rather pleased with himself and with the way he had handled things. His mood was self-congratulatory as he departed the following morning to return to Riva.

  CHAPTER TEN

  "Anyway," Garion was saying as he and Ce'Nedra relaxed in their blue-carpeted sitting room on the evening of his return to Riva, "when we got back to Mandorallen's castle and told Nerina that it was all right for them to get married, she raised all kinds of objections."

  "I always thought she loved him," Ce'Nedra said.

  "She does, but she's been in the very center of this great tragic situation for all these years, and she didn't really want to give that up. She hadn't got all that noble suffering out of her system yet."

  "Don't be snide, Garion."

  "Arends make my teeth ache. First she held out for a dowry -a very big one."

  "That seems reasonable."

  "Not when you consider the fact that I had to pay it."

  "You? Why should you have to pay it?"

  "I'm her guardian, remember? For all of her thee's and thou's and vaporish airs, she haggles like a Drasnian horse trader. By the time she was done, my purse was very lean. And she had to have a formal letter of consent -and a veil, a lady to attend her, a ring, and flowers. And I was getting more irritated by the minute."

  " Aren't you forgetting something?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Didn't Mandorallen propose to her?" Ce'Nedra leaned forward, her little face very intent. "I'm certain that she would have insisted on that."

  "You're right, I almost forgot that part."

  She shook her head almost sadly. "Oh, Garion," she said in a disapproving tone.

  "That came earlier -right after the business with the dowry. Anyway, he proposed, and I made her say yes, and then- "

  "Wait a minute," Ce'Nedra said firmly, holding up one little hand. "Don't rush through that part. Exactly what did he say when he asked her?"

  Garion scratched his ear. "I'm not sure I remember," he confessed.

  "Try." she urged him. "Please."

  "Let's see," he pondered, looking up at the ornately carved wooden beams of the ceiling. "First she objected to having the proposal come before they had gone through all the business of 'getting acquainted,' as she put it. I guess she meant all the sneaking around so that they could be alone together in secluded places -and the love poems and the flowers and all those calf-eyed looks."

  Ce'Nedra gave him a hard little stare. "You know, sometimes you can be absolutely infuriating. You've got about as much sensitivity as a block of wood."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Never mind. Just tell me what happened next."

  "Well, I told her straight off that I wasn't having any of that nonsense. I said that they were already acquainted and to get on with it."

  "You're just full of charm, aren't you?" she said sarcastically.

  "Ce'Nedra, what is the problem here?"

  "Never mind. Just get on with the story. You always dawdle so when you're telling me about something like this."

  "Me? You're the one who keeps interrupting."

  "Just move along with it, Garion."

  He shrugged. "There isn't much more. He asked her; she said yes; and then I marched them down to the chapel."

  "The words, Garion," she insisted. "The words. Exactly what did he say?"

  "Nothing very earth-shaking. It went sort of like 'Wilt thou have me as thy husband, Nerina?"

  "Oh," Ce'Nedra said with a catch in her voice. He was astonished to see tears in her eyes.

  "What's the matter?" he demanded.

  "Never mind," she replied, dabbing at her eyes with a wispy scrap of a handkerchief. "What did she say then?"

  "She said that she hadn't had time to work up a suitable answer, so I told her just to say 'yes.' "

  "And?"

  "She said, 'I will have thee, Sir Mandorallen -with all my heart.' "

  "Oh," Ce'Nedra said again, her handkerchief going once more to her brimming eyes. "That's just lovely."

  "If you say so," he said. "It seemed a little drawn-out to me."

  "Sometimes you're hopeless," she told him. Then she sighed a little forlornly. "I never got a formal proposal," she said.

  "You most certainly did," he said indignantly. "Don't you remember all that ceremony when you and the Tolnedran Ambassador came into the throne room?"

  "I did the proposing, Garion," she reminded him with a toss of her flaming curls. "I presented myself before your throne and asked you if you would consent to take me to wife. You agreed, and that's all there was to it. You never once asked me."

  He frowned and thought back. "I must have."

  "Not once."

  "Well, as long as we got married, anyway, it doesn't really matter all that much, does it?"

  Her expression turned to ice.

  He caught that look. "Is it really that important, Ce'Nedra?" he asked her.

  "Yes, Garion. It is."

  He sighed. "All right then. I guess I'd better do it."

  "Do what?"

  "Propose. Will you marry me, Ce'Nedra?"

  "Is that the best you can do?"

  He gave her a long, steady look. She was, he had to admit, very appealing. She was wearing a pale green dress, all frilly and touched here and there with lace, and she sat rather primly in her chair, looking pouty and discontented. He arose from his chair, crossed to where she sat, and sank extravagantly to his knees. He took her small hand in both of his and looked imploringly into her face, trying to match the look of fatuous adoration that Mandorallen had worn.

  "Will her Imperial Highness consent to have me as her husband?" he asked her. "I can offer little besides an honest, loving heart and boundless devotion."

  "Are you making fun of me?" she asked suspiciously.

  "No." he said. "You wanted a formal proposal, so I just gave you one. Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "Will you consent to marry me?"

  She gave him an arch look, her eyes twinkling. Then she reached out fondly and tousled his hair. "I'll think about it," she replied.

  "What do you mean, you'll think about it?"

  "Who knows?" she said with a smirk. "I might get a better offer. Do get up, Garion. You'll make the knees of your hose all baggy if you stay down on the floor like that."

  He got to his feet. "Women!" he said exasperatedly, throwing his arms in the air.

  She gave him that tiny, wide-eyed look that at one time, before he had come to recognize it as p
ure deception, had always made his knees go weak. "Don't you love me any more?" she asked in that trembling, dishonest, little-girl voice.

  "Didn't we decide that we weren't going to do that to each other any more?"

  "This is a special occasion, dear," she replied. And then she laughed, sprang up from her chair, and threw her arms about his neck. "Oh, Garion," she said, still laughing. "I do love you."

  "I certainly hope so," he said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her upturned lips.

  The following morning Garion dressed rather informally and then tapped on the door to Ce'Nedra's private sitting room.

  "Yes?" she answered.

  "It's Garion," he said. "May I come in?"

  His Sendarian good manners had been so deeply ingrained in him that even though he was the King here, he always asked permission before opening the door to someone else's room.

  "Of course," she said.

  He turned the latch and entered her frilly private domain, a room all pink and pale-green flounces and with yards of rustling satin and brocade drapery. Ce'Nedra's favorite lady-in-waiting, Arell, rose in some confusion to perform the customary curtsy. Arell was Brand's niece, the daughter of his youngest sister, and she was one of several highborn Rivan ladies who attended the queen. She was very nearly the archetypical Alorn woman, tall, blond, and buxom, with golden braids coiled about her head, deep blue eyes and a complexion like new milk. She and Ce'Nedra were virtually inseparable, and the two spent much of their time with their heads together, whispering and giggling. For some reason, Arell always blushed rosily whenever Garion entered the room. He did not understand that at all, but privately suspected that Ce'Nedra had told her lady-in-waiting certain things that really should have remained private -things that brought a blush to the Rivan girl's cheeks whenever she looked at him.

  "I'm going down into the city," Garion told his wife. "Did you want anything?"

  "I prefer to do my own shopping, Garion," Ce'Nedra replied, smoothing the front of her satin dressing gown. "You never get things right anyway."

  He was about to reply to that, but decided against it. "Whatever you want. I'll see you at luncheon then."

  "As my Lord commands," Ce'Nedra said with a mocking little genuflection.

  "Stop that."

  She made a face at him and then came over and kissed him.

  Garion turned to Arell. "My Lady," he said, bowing politely.

  Arell's blue eyes were filled with suppressed mirth, and there was a slightly speculative look in them as well. She blushed and curtsied again. "Your Majesty," she said respectfully.

  As Garion left the royal apartment, he wondered idly what Ce'Nedra had told Arell to cause all those blushes and peculiar looks. He was grateful to the blond girl, however. Her presence provided Ce'Nedra with company, which left him free to attend to other matters. Since Aunt Pol had intervened and healed the estrangement that had caused them both so much anguish, Ce'Nedra had become very possessive about Garion's spare time. On the whole he felt that being married was rather nice, but sometimes Ce'Nedra tended to overdo things a bit.

  In the corridor outside, Brand's second son, Kail, was waiting, holding a parchment sheet in his hand. "I think this needs your immediate attention, Sire," he said formally.

  Although Kail was a warrior, tall and broad-shouldered like his father and his brothers, he was nonetheless a studious man, intelligent and discreet, and he knew enough about Riva and its people to be able to sort through the voluminous petitions, appeals, and proposals directed to the throne and to separate the important from the trivial. When Garion had first come to the throne, the need for someone to manage the administrative staff had been painfully clear, and Kail had been the obvious choice for that post. He was about twenty-four years old and wore a neatly trimmed brown beard. The hours he had spent in study had given him a slight squint and a permanent furrow between his eyebrows. Since he and Garion spent several hours a day together, they had soon become friends, and Garion greatly respected Kail's judgment and advice. "Is it serious?" he asked, taking the parchment and glancing at it.

  "It could be, Sire," Kail replied. "There's a dispute over the ownership of a certain valley. The families involved are both quite powerful, and I think we'll want to set the matter before things go any further."

  "Is there any clear-cut evidence of ownership on either side?"

  Kail shook his head. "The two families have used the land in common for centuries. There's been some friction between them lately, however."

  "I see," Garion said. He thought about it. "No matter what I decide, one side or the other is going to be unhappy with me, right?"

  "Very probably, your Majesty."

  " All right, then. We'll let them both be unhappy. Write up something that sounds sort of official declaring that this valley of theirs now belongs to me. We'll let them stew about that for a week or so, and then I'll divide the land right down the middle and give half to each of them. They'll be so angry with me that they'll forget that they don't like each other. I don't want this island turning into another Arendia."

  Kail laughed. "Very practical, Belgarion," he said.

  Garion grinned at him. "I grew up in Sendaria, remember? Oh, keep a strip of the valley -about a hundred yards wide right through the center. Call it crown land or something and forbid them to trespass on it. That should keep them from butting heads along the fence line." He handed the parchment back to Kail and went on down the corridor, rather pleased with himself.

  His mission in the city that morning took him to the shop of a young glass blower of his acquaintance, a skilled artisan named Joran. Ostensibly the visit was for the purpose of inspecting a set of crystal goblets he had commissioned as a present for Ce'Nedra. Its real purpose, however, was somewhat more serious. Because his upbringing had been humble, Garion was more aware than most monarchs that the opinions and problems of the common people seldom came to the attention of the throne. He strongly felt that he needed a pair of ears in the city -not to spy out unfavorable opinion, but rather to give him a clear, unprejudiced awareness of the real problems of his people. Joran had been his choice for that task.

  After they had gone through the motions of looking at the goblets, the two of them went into a small, private room at the back of Joran's shop.

  "I got your note as soon as I got back from Arendia," Garion said. "Is the matter really that serious?"

  "I believe so, your Majesty," Joran replied. "The tax was poorly thought out, I think, and it's causing a great deal of unfavorable comment."

  "All directed at me, I suppose?"

  "You are the king, after all."

  "Thanks," Garion said drily. "What's the main dissatisfaction with it?"

  "All taxes are odious," Joran observed, "but they're bearable as long as everybody has to pay the same. It's the exclusion that irritates people."

  "Exclusion? What's that?"

  "The nobility doesn't have to pay commercial taxes. Didn't you know that?"

  "No." Garion said. "I didn't."

  "The theory was that nobles have other obligations -raising and supporting troops and so on. That simply doesn't hold true any more. The crown raises its own army now. If a nobleman goes into trade, though, he doesn't have to pay any commercial taxes. The only real difference between him and any other tradesman is that he happens to have a title.

  His shop is the same as mine, and he spends his time the same way that I do -but I have to pay the tax, and he doesn't."

  "That doesn't seem very fair," Garion agreed.

  "What makes it worse is that I have to charge higher prices in order to pay the tax, but the nobleman can cut his rates and steal my customers away from me."

  "That's going to have to be fixed," Garion said. "We'll eliminate that exclusion."

  "The nobles won't like it," Joran warned.

  "They don't have to like it," Garion said flatly.

  "You're a very fair king, your Majesty."

  "Fairness d
oesn't really have all that much to do with it," Garion disagreed. "How many nobles are in business here in the city?"

  Joran shrugged. " A couple dozen, I suppose."

  "And how many other businessmen are there?"

  "Hundreds."

  "I'd rather have two dozen people hate me than several hundred."

  "I hadn't thought of it that way," Joran admitted.

  "I sort of have to," Garion said wryly.

  The following week a series of squalls swept in off the Sea of the Winds, raking the rocky isle with chill gales and tattered sheets of slanting rain. The weather at Riva was never really what one would call pleasant for very long, and these summer storms were so common that the Rivans accepted them as part of the natural order of things. Ce'Nedra, however, had been raised far to the south in the endless sunshine at Tol Honeth, and the damp chill which invaded the Citadel each time the sky turned gray and soggy depressed her spirits and made her irritable and out of sorts.

  She customarily endured these spells of bad weather by ensconcing herself in a large green velvet armchair by the fire with a warm blanket, a cup of tea, and an oversized book -usually an Arendish romance which dwelt fulsomely on impossibly splendid knights and sighing ladies perpetually on the verge of disaster. Prolonged confinement, however, almost always drove her at last from her book in search of other diversions.

  One midmorning when the wind was moaning in the chimneys and the rain was slashing at the windows, she entered the study where Garion was carefully going over an exhaustive report on wool production on crown lands in the north. The little queen wore an ermine-trimmed gown of green velvet and a discontented expression. "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Reading about wool," he replied.

  "Why?"

  "I think I'm supposed to know about it. Everybody stands around talking about wool with these sober expressions on their faces. It seems to be terribly important to them."

  "Do you really care that much about it?"

  He shrugged. "It helps to pay the bills."

  She drifted over to the window and stared out at the rain. "Will it never stop?" she demanded at last.