Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress

by David Eddings

  It was all very festive, but it went on for weeks, and quite naturally I had to sit through all of it wondering just what the prize might be for inhuman patience.

  Eventually, as was fairly obvious he would be from the first round of jousting matches, the ultimate winner was the then-current Baron of Mandor, a massively muscular Mimbrate knight named Mandorathan. I knew him quite well, since my father had urged me to keep an eye on his family. Father quite obviously had plans for the Mandors.

  I liked Mandorathan – once I persuaded him to stop falling on his knees every time I entered the room. A man in full armor is so noisy when he does that. I did notice that the level of civility at my ‘court’ improved enormously when my fully armored champion stood just behind my chair looking ominous. My vassals by now had fairly good manners, but Mandorathan’s presence encouraged them to polish those manners until they positively gleamed.

  The twenty-eighth century was a time of peace and prosperity in Arendia, and my duchy flourished, in no small part I think because my vassals followed my lead in the business of enriching the soil. There are many lakes in what is now Sendaria, and most of them have peat bogs surrounding them. I’d discovered on the Isle of the Winds that peat does wonders when plowed into the soil, and if the weather cooperated only slightly, every year in my realm was better than the previous one. I introduced new crops and brought in new strains of cattle from Algaria. I pillaged uncle Beldin’s library for treatises on agriculture – largely written by scholars at the University of Melcene – and I applied the most advanced techniques in my domain. I built roads from farm to market, and to some degree I controlled prices to insure that the farmers in the duchy were not swindled by the merchants who bought their crops. I was denounced in some circles as a busybody, but I didn’t really care about that. I mothered the Duchy of Erat outrageously, and as time went on, my subjects came to realize that ‘Mumsy would take care of everything.’

  There were a couple of things that ‘Mumsy’ did that they didn’t like, however. I absolutely insisted that they keep their villages tidy, for one thing, and laborers eager to get to the nearest tavern after work didn’t much enjoy picking up their tools before they went off to celebrate. I also put a stop to wife-beating, a favorite pastime of a surprising number of men. My methods were very direct. A man who’s stupid enough to beat his wife isn’t likely to listen to reason, so I instructed the constable of each village to ‘persuade’ wife-beaters to find another hobby. I did urge the constables not break too many bones in the process, however. A man with two broken legs can’t really put in a full day’s work, after all. There was, I remember, one very thick-headed fellow in the village of Mid Tolling who was so stubborn about it that he wound up with both arms and both legs broken before he got the point. After that, he was the politest husband you’ve ever seen.

  The tournament at the Great Arendish Fair became a fixture, an addendum, if you will, to the annual meeting of the Arendish Council, and I think that made the chore of keeping the peace even easier. Toward the end of the century, however, the Oriman family came into power in Asturia, and the relations between the four duchies became strained. The Orimans were greedy, ambitious and devoid of anything remotely resembling scruples. The first of the Oriman dukes was a rat-like little fellow who thought he was clever. His name was Garteon, and he began to find excuses not to attend the meetings of the Arendish Council. After the third year marked by his absence, I decided to go have a talk with him. My champion at that particular time was one of my own barons, a huge man of Alorn background named Torgun. We rode on down to Vo Astur, and Baron Torgun let it be known that he’d dismantle large numbers of people if I were not immediately escorted into Duke Garteon’s presence. Alorns can be useful at times.

  The unctuous little Garteon greeted me with an oily smile and fell all over himself apologizing for his repeated absences.

  ‘Have you by chance heard of “Nerasin’s complaint”, your Grace?’ I cut him off. ‘You show all the symptoms of an onset of the disease to me, and I am a trained physician, so I recognize all kinds of illnesses. I’d strongly advise you to make a special point of attending the council meeting next summer. Duke Nerasin found squirming around on the floor while he squealed and vomited up blood to be terribly inconvenient.’

  Garteon’s face went very pale. ‘I’ll be there, Lady Polgara,’ he promised. Evidently Nerasin’s tummy-ache had entered the body of Asturian folk-lore.

  ‘We’ll be expecting you then,’ I said quite firmly. Then Baron Torgun and I left Vo Astur.

  ‘You should have let me split him down the middle, my Lady,’ Torgun growled as we rode away.

  ‘We’re supposed to be civilized, Baron,’ I replied. ‘Civilized people don’t hack up their neighbors. I think Garteon got my message. If he doesn’t show up at the meeting next summer, I might have to be a bit more firm the next time he and I have one of these little chats.’

  ‘Can you really do that?’ Torgun asked curiously. ‘I mean, can you actually make a man start throwing up blood?’

  ‘If I need to, yes.’

  ‘What do you need me for, then?’

  ‘For the pleasure of your companionship, my dear Torgun. Let’s move right along, shall we? It’s almost harvest time, so there are all kinds of things that need my attention.’

  Garteon of Asturia was defenestrated by his barons a few years later. That’s one of the disadvantages of living in a palace with high towers. There’s always the possibility of ‘accidentally’ falling out of a window about seven stories above a flagstoned courtyard.

  His son, also named Garteon, was probably an even greater scoundrel than his father. Asturia was getting to be a problem.

  We entered the thirtieth century, and I realized that I’d been manipulating Arendish affairs for almost six hundred years. I rather enjoyed it, actually. The Arends were much like children in many ways, and they’d come to look upon me as a wise parent to whom they brought most of their problems. More importantly, maybe, was the fact that they checked with me before they put anything major in motion. I was able to head off all sorts of potential disasters because of that.

  It was in the spring of 2937 that I advised my co-rulers that Torgun’s successor as my champion, a Mimbrate knight named Anclasin, was getting along in years and that his hearing was beginning to fail. Moreover, he had a number of grandchildren down in Mimbre, and he really wanted to spend more time with them. Parenthood is nice, but grandparenthood is golden.

  This, of course, added a certain excitement to the annual tourney at the Great Fair that summer. The winner, always referred to as ‘the mightiest knight of life,’ would be rewarded with the dubious pleasure of living under my thumb for the next several decades.

  I arrived at the fair a few days early that summer, and my seneschal, one of Killane’s descendants, nosed about and brought me some rather disturbing news. It seemed that an enterprising Drasnian merchant was accepting wagers on the outcome of the tournaments. Now, if someone wants to waste his money on gambling, that’s none of my concern. What I didn’t want was for someone to start tampering with the various events in order to determine the winner in advance. I spoke rather pointedly with the Drasnian, laying down a few rules for him to follow in his venture. The rules were fairly simple. No bribes. No tampering with equipment. No introduction of exotic herbs into the diets of contestants or of their horses. The Drasnian entrepreneur’s expression was a little pained when he left my pavilion. Quite obviously, he’d had some plans that I’d just disrupted.

  A formal tournament can be viewed as a kind of refinery where the slag is boiled away and only the true gold is left behind. That’s probably a very offensive metaphor to those who end up on the slag-heap, but life is hard sometimes, I guess. The winnowing-down process went on for several weeks, and eventually there were only two contenders left, a pair of Wacite noblemen, Lathan and Ontrose, who’d been boyhood friends of Duke Andrion. Baron Lathan was a big, boisterous fellow with dark blon
d hair, and Count Ontrose was a more studious and polished man with black hair and deep blue eyes. I’d known the both of them since they were children, and I was really quite fond of them. Frankly, I was a bit surprised that the cultured Count Ontrose had advanced so far in a competition that was largely based on brute strength.

  The final jousting match took place on a breezy summer morning when white puffy clouds were skipping like lambs across their blue pasture. The spectators were all gathered around the lists and were beginning to grow restive until an extended trumpet fanfare announced that the ‘entertainment’ was about to begin. I was seated on a regal throne flanked by Andrion of Wacune, Garteon of Asturia, and the aged Moratham of Mimbre when the pair of friends, all clad in gleaming armor and with pennons snapping from the tips of their lances, rode forth to receive my blessing and instruction. They reined in side by side and dipped their lances to me in salute.

  That sort of thing can go to a girl’s head if she doesn’t keep a firm grip on herself.

  My ‘instruction’ was suitably flowery, but my conclusion had some un-flowery practicality to it. ‘Don’t hurt each other,’ I commanded them.

  Their expressions at that point were a study in contrasts. Count Ontrose, far and away the more handsome of the two, wore a look of civilized adoration. Baron Lathan, on the other hand, seemed so caught up with emotion that his features were almost distorted. There were tears in his eyes as he looked at me.

  Then, with a final flourish, the armored pair posted formally to opposite ends of the lists to do battle upon each other. The ‘list’ in a formal joust consists of a stout waist-high rail designed, I think, to keep the horses from being injured during the festivities. A joust is a simple game, really. Each knight attempts to knock his opponent off his horse with a blunted twenty-foot lance. Draws are not infrequent, and in the event that both knights are sent crashing to the ground, they both get up, get back on their horses, and try it again. It’s a very noisy affair that usually provides many business opportunities for the local bone-setter.

  At the traditional signaling horn call, they both clapped down their visors, lowered their lances and charged, thundering down the lists toward each other. Their lances both struck true against those stout shields, and as usual, both lances shattered, filling the air with splinters. The jousts at a formal tourney can seriously deplete the supply of trees in a nearby forest.

  They both wheeled and rode back to their original starting point.

  Ontrose was laughing gaily but Lathan was glaring at his friend with a look of competitive belligerence. Baron Lathan seemed to be missing the point here. A jousting match is supposed to be a sporting event, not a duel to the death. In previous tourneys, I’d been moderately indifferent about the outcome, but this time was somehow different. My ‘knights protectors’ in the past had not really loomed very large in my life. They’d been no more than appurtenances to my station. I had an uneasy feeling this time that should Baron Lathan be the victor, he’d cause difficulties later on. Arendish literature positively swarms with improprieties involving high-born ladies and their bodyguards and Lathan seemed to be well-read. Should he happen to win, he’d clearly cause some problems. My impartiality started to slip just a bit.

  The second pass with lances proved to be no more decisive than the first, and when the contestants rode back to take their places for the third, Lathan’s look of open belligerence had become even more pronounced.

  This was going too far, and I decided at that point to ‘take steps’.

  ‘No, Pol,’ mother’s voice murmured. ‘Stay out of it.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Do as I say!’ Mother almost never took that tone, and it got my immediate attention. I relaxed my gathering Will.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said.

  As it turned out, Ontrose didn’t really need any help from me. Baron Lathan appeared to be so wrought up that his skill deserted him on the third pass. He seemed to be so intent on destroying his opponent that he forgot to brace his shield properly, and Count Ontrose neatly picked him out of his saddle with that long lance of his and hurled him to the ground with a resounding crash.

  ‘No!’ The fallen knight howled, and his voice was a wail of regret and unspeakable loss.

  Count Ontrose reined in sharply, swung down from his saddle, and rushed to his friend. ‘Art thou injured?’ he demanded, kneeling at Lathan’s side. ‘Have I harmed thee?’

  I didn’t exactly disobey mother, but I did send a quick, probing thought at the fallen baron He was gasping, but that would have been quite normal. Being unhorsed in a jousting match almost always knocks the wind out of a man.

  Then the physicians reached the pair, and they seemed greatly concerned. Baron Lathan had taken a very nasty fall, and the steel armor in which he was encased was so dented in on the left side of his chest that he could scarcely breathe. Once the physicians had pried him out of his armor, however, his breathing became normal, and he even congratulated Ontrose on his victory. Then the physicians carted him off to the dispensary.

  Count Ontrose remounted his war-horse and rode over to claim his prize – me, in this case. He lowered his lance to me, and, in keeping with tradition, I tied a flimsy blue scarf about its tip as a visible sign of my ‘favor’. ‘Now art thou my true knight,’ I declaimed in formal tones.

  ‘I thank thee, your Grace,’ he replied in a musical baritone, ‘and I do hereby pledge unto thee my life and undying devotion.’

  I thought that was terribly nice of him.

  Ontrose, now ‘the mightiest knight of life,’ was one of those rare people who excelled at everything he put his hand to. He was a philosopher, a rose fancier, a poet, and a lutanist of the first magnitude. His manners were exquisite, but he was a complete terror in the jousting lists. Not only that, he was absolutely gorgeous! He was tall, slimly muscular, and his features might have served as a model for a statue. His skin was very fair, but, as I mentioned before, his long hair was lustrous blue-black. His large expressive eyes were a deep sapphire blue, and a whole generation of young Arendish ladies cried themselves to sleep over him every night for a goodly number of years.

  And now he was mine.

  There was a formal investiture after the tourney, of course. Arends love ceremonies. The three dukes, dressed in semi-regal finery, escorted the hero into my presence and formally asked me if this beautiful young man was acceptable to me. What an absurd question that was. I recited the formulaic little speech that enrolled Count Ontrose as my champion, and then he knelt to swear undying allegiance to me, offering up the ‘might of his hands’ in my defense. It wasn’t really his hands that interested me, though.

  Baron Lathan was in attendance with his left arm in a sling. His unhorsing had severely sprained his shoulder. His face was very pale, and there were even tears of disappointment in his eyes during the ceremony. Some competitors simply cannot bear to lose. He once again formally congratulated Ontrose, which I thought was very civilized of him. There have been times in Arendia when the loser of a jousting match has declared war on the winner. Lathan and Ontrose had been friends, and that evidently hadn’t changed.

  We lingered for a time at the fair, and then returned to Vo Wacune, where Ontrose took up residence in my town house.

  As autumn touched the leaves, my champion and I rode north so that I could familiarize him with the peculiarities of the duchy of Erat.

  ‘I have been advised, your Grace, that serfdom doth no longer prevail within thy boundaries, and I do confess that I have been much intrigued by that fact. The emancipation of they who stand – or grovel – at the lowest level of society is an act of sublime humanity, but I am hard put to understand how it is that the economy of this duchy hath not collapsed. Prithee, enlighten me concerning this wonder.’

  I wasn’t entirely certain if his education had descended into the labyrinthine sphere of economics, but I tried to explain just how it was that my duchy prospered without serfdom. I was startled – and pleased
– by how quickly he grasped certain concepts that had taken me whole generations to pound into the thick heads of my vassals.

  ‘In fine then, my Lady, it seemeth to me that thy realm doth still rest upon the backs of the former serfs – not in this case upon their unrequited labor, but rather upon their wages. For certes, now can they purchase such goods as previously were beyond them quite. The merchant class prospers, and their share of the tax burden doth lighten the load borne by the land-owners, thy vassals. The prosperity of the former serf is the base upon which the economy of the entire realm doth stand.’

  ‘Ontrose,’ I told him, ‘you’re a treasure. You grasped in moments what’s eluded some of my vassals for six hundred years.’

  He shrugged. ‘It is no more than simple mathematics, your Grace,’ he replied. ‘An ounce apiece from the many doth far exceed a pound apiece from the few.’

  ‘Nicely put, Ontrose.’

  ‘I rather liked it,’ he agreed modestly.

  We talked of many things on our journey north, and I found my young – well, relatively young – champion to have a quick and agile mind. He also had an uncharacteristic urbanity that reminded me a great deal of my dear friend Kamion back on the Isle of the Winds.

  He was suitably impressed by my manor house, and he had the uncommon good sense to make friends with my Killane-descended retainers. Moreover, his enthusiasm for roses at least equaled my own. His conversation was a delight, his impromptu concerts on his lute – often accompanied by his rich baritone – brought tears to my eyes, and his ability to grasp – and question – obscure philosophical issues sometimes astounded me.

  I found myself beginning to have thoughts I probably shouldn’t have had. In my mind, Ontrose was becoming more than a friend. That’s when mother stepped in. ‘Polgara,’ her voice came to me one night, ‘this isn’t really appropriate, you know.’