Polgara the Sorceress

by David Eddings

  Word of all this eventually reached the Citadel, and Daran, Kamion and I gathered in Kamion’s book-lined study to consider options.

  ‘They’re both very powerful men,’ Kamion told us gravely, ‘and they both have extended families. We’re going to have to take steps, or we’ll have another Arendia on our hands.’

  ‘Can a marriage actually be dissolved like that?’ Daran asked.

  ‘There are arguments on both sides about that, your Highness,’ Kamion replied. ‘In most cases, it depends on the relative power of the two fathers. If the husband’s father is the more powerful, the wife’s considered to be property. If it’s the other way around, she isn’t.’

  Daran frowned. ‘Have I got a big enough army to go down there and force a settlement on those two hot-heads?’

  ‘I’d hold that in reserve, your Highness. Let’s try talking to them first. A general mobilization probably wouldn’t hurt, though. It’d be a demonstration of the fact that you aren’t happy about the situation.’

  ‘What shape is the treasury in, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me. ‘Can I afford a general mobilization?’

  ‘I suppose so – if you don’t drag it out too long.’ Then an idea came to me. ‘Why don’t we hold a tournament instead?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Pol, but I didn’t understand that.’

  ‘It’s an Arendish custom, your Highness,’ Kamion explained. ‘It’s a sort of military contest involving archery contests, mock sword-fights, axe throwing, jousting matches – that sort of thing.’

  ‘What’s jousting?’

  ‘Two armored men try to knock each other off the backs of their horses with twenty-foot lances.’

  ‘What a peculiar notion.’

  ‘We could probably skip over that part,’ Kamion said. ‘Alorns don’t usually fight on horseback.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s really a very good idea, Pol. It’d give Garhein and Altor an idea of just how much force the throne can muster, and the nobles would have to pay their own way. We make our point without emptying out the treasury.’

  ‘What if nobody comes?’ Daran fretted.

  ‘They’ll come, dear,’ I assured him. ‘It’s a chance to show off. The planting’s all done now, so there’s nothing really very pressing to keep people away. It’ll be an honor to be invited, so we can be fairly sure that every nobleman on the Isle will put in an appearance.’

  ‘Including Garhein and Altor?’

  ‘Exactly. We can summon them to the Citadel during the festivities. They’ll already be here in the city anyway, so they won’t be able to refuse.’

  And we can make an object lesson of them,’ Kamion added. ‘There are other little disputes festering on various parts of the Isle. If you come down hard on Garhein and Altor, other nobles should get the point.’

  ‘That might be just a bit optimistic, Kamion,’ I suggested. ‘We are talking about Alorns, after all.’

  The invitations to the games went out, and the City of Riva was teeming with burly Alorns when Altor and Garhein arrived. The fact that almost every able-bodied man on the Isle had responded to the Prince Regent’s invitation wasn’t lost on them. The regency wasn’t yet a year old, but Daran’s authority was already well-established. We gave the two feuding barons a bit of time to absorb that, and then Daran summoned them to the Citadel. The meeting was held in the throne room where all the symbols of power were much in evidence.

  I’ll state candidly here that my sympathies were wholly on the side of Baron Altor and his daughter in the light of Karak’s open brutality, but I’ll have to admit that the differences between Garhein and Altor were very slight. Both of them were big, burly, bearded, and not very bright. They wore chain mail shirts, but no swords, since Kamion had prudently decided to have everyone who entered the throne room disarmed at the door. Garhein had rusty-colored hair that stuck out in all directions, while Altor had greased-down black hair that looked much like a wet horsetail streaming down his back. Though it was early in the day, the brutish Karak was already drunk. He was a flabby young man with a sparse beard and unkempt hair, and I could smell him from half-way across the throne room. Altor’s daughter, Cellan, was the only one of the group to appear even remotely civilized. She was pretty, in a blonde, busty, Alorn sort of way, but her blue eyes were every bit as hard as her father’s.

  The feuding families had been prudently seated on opposite sides of the Hall of the Rivan King. Word of the meeting had spread, and the hall was filled with curious onlookers.

  Daran, Kamion and I’d had plenty of time to lay out exactly what we were going to do, so the entire event was carefully staged. The palace guard had been turned out, of course, and armed, hulking soldiers in mail shirts lined the walls just to make sure that there wouldn’t be any interruptions or surprises. We’d had Daran’s chair and table removed from the dais, so when we entered the packed hall, my nephew went directly to his father’s throne and sat down.

  That caused quite a stir.

  ‘All right, then,’ Daran said crisply, ‘let’s get down to business here.’ There was a no-nonsense tone in his voice indicating that he was fully in charge. ‘My father’s distressed by certain things that’ve been happening on the southern end of the Isle, and we don’t want to upset him any further, do we?’ He leaned forward. ‘My Lord Barons Garhein and Altor, come here.’ He pointed imperiously at a spot directly in front of the dais.

  The two warring hot-heads approached warily.

  ‘I’m going to put a stop to all this nonsense right here and now,’ my sandy-haired nephew informed them. The next one of you who breaks the king’s peace had better start packing, because he’ll be moving immediately to the northern end of the Isle.’

  ‘Your Highness!’ Garhein protested. ‘It’s all rock up there! Nobody can live on the northern end of the Isle!’

  ‘If you draw your sword one more time, Garhein, you’ll get a chance to try. You could probably raise goats. Goats eat almost anything.’

  Garhein’s son Karak lurched to his feet. ‘You can’t do that!’ he bellowed at Daran in a drunken voice.

  ‘Can you sober this fool up, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied.

  ‘Would you, please?’

  We’d been fairly certain that the beer-soaked Karak would interrupt at some point in the proceedings, so I was fully prepared.

  Daran had already demonstrated his power. Now it was my turn. The fact that Elthek, the Rivan Deacon, was in attendance made my performance a bit excessive, I’ll admit. Daran, Kamion and I were spreading object lessons in all directions that day. ‘Bring that drunkard here,’ I instructed the huge Master of the Guard.

  ‘At once, Lady Polgara,’ the vastly bearded soldier replied. He bulled his way through the startled crowd, grasped Karak by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the front of the Hall.

  I held out my hand, snapped my fingers and willed a tankard to be there. Then I took a glass vial from my sleeve and poured the contents into the tankard. I raised the oversized cup and said, ‘Beer.’ There was an absolute silence in the Hall, so the sound of the stream of foamy, amber beer pouring out of empty air above the tankard was clearly audible. I glanced at Elthek and noted with some satisfaction that his eyes were bulging and his mouth gaped open. People who pretend to perform magic are always very startled when they encounter the real thing. Then I advanced on the cringing, smelly Karak. ‘Now be a good boy and drink this,’ I instructed.

  He looked at the tankard as if it were a snake and put both his hands behind his back.

  ‘Make him drink it, Sergeant,’ Daran instructed the Master of the Guard.

  ‘My pleasure, your Highness,’ the big soldier replied. He roughly seized one of the drunkard’s hands and interlaced his fingers with Karak’s. ‘Drink it!’ he thundered.

  Karak struggled weakly.

  Then the soldier began to squeeze – slowly. The sergeant had shoulders like an ox and hands the size of hams. He probably could have made a r
ock bleed just by squeezing it.

  Karak rose up on his tiptoes, squealing like a pig.

  ‘Drink it!’ the Sergeant repeated.

  ‘Your Highness!’ Garhein protested.

  ‘Shut up!’ Daran snapped. ‘You people will learn to do as I tell you!’

  The sergeant continued to squeeze Karak’s hand in that overpowering grip of his, and the drunkard finally snatched the tankard from my hand and noisily drank it.

  ‘Ah, Sergeant,’ I said to the soldier, ‘I expect that our young friend here might start feeling unwell in a few moments. Why don’t you take him over near the wall so he doesn’t splash all over everybody?’

  The sergeant grinned broadly and dragged Karak off to one side where the sodden young man became noisily ill.

  ‘Lady Cellan,’ Daran said then, ‘would you be so good as to approach the throne for a moment?’

  Cellan obediently, though a little hesitantly, came to the dais.

  ‘Do you wish to return to your husband?’ Daran asked.

  ‘Never!’ she burst out. ‘I’ll kill myself first! He beats me, your Highness. Every time he gets drunk – which is every day – he takes his fists to me.’

  ‘I see.’ Daran’s face hardened. ‘No decent man ever hits a woman,’ he declared, ‘so, by order of the throne, the marriage of Karak and Cellan is hereby dissolved.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Garhein roared. ‘It’s a woman’s duty to submit to her husband’s chastisement when she misbehaves.’

  ‘It’s also a nobleman’s duty to submit to chastisement from the throne when he misbehaves,’ Kamion advised him. ‘You’re pressing your luck, Baron Garhein.’

  ‘Now we come to the question of the ownership of that parcel of land,’ Daran said.

  ‘The land is mine!’ Garhein bellowed.

  ‘It’s mine!’ Altor countered. ‘It reverted to me entirely when his Highness dissolved the marriage.’

  ‘Actually, dear chaps,’ Kamion said smoothly, ‘the land belongs to the crown. The entire island does. You hold all your land in trust – at the crown’s pleasure.’

  ‘We could probably argue the fine points of the law for weeks,’ Daran said, ‘but legal arguments are very boring, so, in order to save time – and bloodshed – we’ll simply divide that disputed parcel of land right down the middle. Half goes to Baron Garhein, and Half to Baron Altor.’

  ‘Unthinkable!’ Garhein protested.

  ‘Start thinking about goats then, Garhein, or landless vagabondage. You will do as I tell you to do.’ Then my nephew’s eyes narrowed. ‘Now, just to keep you two and your assorted partisans and kinsmen out of mischief, you’re going to build a fifteen-foot wall right down the middle of that parcel of land. It’ll give you something to do, and it’ll keep you away from each other. I want to see a lot of progress on that wall, gentlemen, and I want to see both of you out there carrying rocks, too. You’re not going to just pass this off to your underlings.’

  ‘That’s twenty miles, your Highness!’ Altor gasped.

  ‘Is that all? You should be able to finish up in a decade or two, then. I want you to go to opposite ends and start building. I’ll have the sergeant here mark the exact center and you can think of it as a race. I might even let the winner keep his head as a prize. Lord Brand knows the name of every one of your partisans, and they’ll be joining you in your great work – either willingly or in chains. Have I made myself clear?’

  They glowered at him, but wisely chose not to say anything.

  ‘I’d suspect that you gentlemen aren’t going to be popular among your kinsmen,’ Kamion noted. ‘I suggest that you wear mail shirts during the construction – just as a precaution.’

  ‘Now we come to that sick fellow over in the corner,’ Daran said, rising from his father’s throne rather grimly.

  By now Karak had pretty much emptied his stomach of everything he’d eaten or drunk for the past several weeks. He was pale and trembling violently when the hulking sergeant dragged him back to the dais.

  ‘Decent men don’t beat their wives, Karak,’ Daran said, ‘so I’m going to teach you decency right here and now.’ He reached behind the throne and picked up a long, limber whip.

  ‘You can’t!’ Garhein almost screamed. ‘My son’s a nobleman!’

  ‘You and I seem to have conflicting definitions of nobility, Garhein,’ Daran told him. ‘Since this sodden beast is your son, though, I’ll defer to you in the matter. I’m either going to flog him or chop off both his hands. Take your pick.’

  ‘Behanding him would keep him from hitting women, your Highness,’ Kamion noted clinically, ‘and it might cut down on his drinking, too – unless he’d like to lap his beer out of a bowl like a dog.’

  ‘Good point, Lord Brand,’ Daran noted. He reached up and took down his father’s sword, which leaped joyously into bright blue flame. ‘Well, Garhein?’ he said, ‘which is it going to be?’ He held out the flaming sword in one hand and the whip in the other.

  Garhein gaped at him.

  ‘Answer me!’ Daran roared.

  ‘Th-the whip, your Highness,’ Garhein stammered.

  ‘Wise choice,’ Kamion murmured. ‘Having a son and heir without any hands could be so demeaning.’

  Then the Master of the Guard, who’d obviously already been instructed upon what to do, ripped off Karak’s doublet, kicked his feet out from under him and seized him by one ankle. ‘Just to keep him from crawling under the furniture, your Highness,’ he explained, firmly planting his foot on Karak’s other ankle.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Daran said. Then he hung the sword back up, let his cloak fall to the floor, removed his doublet, and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Pushing right along then,’ he said and proceeded to flog the screaming, squirming drunkard to within an inch of his life. Cellan, I noticed, loved every minute of it. Alorns are such a simple, uncomplicated people at times.

  After Daran had finished, he tossed his whip down and picked up his clothes again. ‘I think that concludes our business here for the day, my friends,’ he announced to the shocked assemblage. ‘If I remember correctly, the archery contest begins this afternoon. I might even shoot off a quiver of arrows myself. I’ll see you all there, then.’

  After the three of us had returned to Kamion’s study, I put it to the two of them directly. ‘You had that flogging all planned in advance, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course, Aunt Pol,’ Daran grinned at me.

  ‘Without consulting me?’

  ‘We didn’t want to upset you, Pol,’ Kamion said smoothly. ‘Did you really find it too offensive?’

  I pretended to consider it. ‘Not really,’ I conceded. ‘Considering Karak’s behavior, it was more or less appropriate.’

  ‘We talked about some alternatives,’ Kamion said. ‘I thought it might be sort of nice if I called that beer-soaked bully out, gave him a sword and then chopped him to pieces, but his Highness decided that might upset you, so we settled for the flogging instead – less messy, you understand.’

  ‘And the threat to chop off his hands?’

  ‘I just made that up on the spur of the moment, Aunt Pol,’ Daran admitted. ‘I think it might have gotten my point about wife-beating across, though.’ Then he snapped his fingers. ‘Why don’t we enter that in the criminal code, Kamion?’

  ‘You’re a barbarian, Daran,’ I accused him.

  ‘No, Aunt Pol, I’m an Alorn. I know my people, and I know what frightens them. I don’t want to rule by terror, but I do want other Rivans to understand that things can get very nasty if they do something that I don’t like, and I really don’t like wife-beating.’ He leaned back in his chair and looked speculatively out the window at the bright sunny day. ‘That’s really at the center of all power, Aunt Pol,’ he mused. ‘We can try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any ruler is based on a threat. Fortunately, we don’t have to carry that threat out too often. If I’d known I was going to have to be a savage to sit in my fath
er’s place, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’d still be running, and neither you nor grandfather would ever have been able to find me.’

  I was so proud of him at that point that I almost exploded.

  News of Daran’s handling of the feud between Garhein and Altor spread far and wide throughout the Isle, and the Rivans began to look at their youthful Prince Regent with a new respect. Daran was working out just fine.

  Chapter 11

  Anrak sailed into the harbor late the following summer. Over the years I’d noted that Anrak moved around a lot. Most men settle down eventually, but Anrak was born to wander. The cousin of Iron-grip, Bull-neck, and Fleet-foot had grey hair by now, but there was still an irrepressible quality of youth about him. He visited with Riva for quite some time and then joined Kamion, Daran, and me in a blue-draped conference chamber high in one of the towers of the Citadel. As Kamion’s seemingly endless succession of children had begun to spill over into his study, it had become necessary for us to find another place to work. ‘My cousin’s not going to get over his wife’s death, is he, Pol?’ Anrak asked as we all sat at a long conference table. ‘He talks about old times, but he doesn’t seem to even mention anything that’s happened recently. It’s almost as if his life ended when your sister died.’

  ‘In many ways it did, Anrak,’ I told him, ‘and mine very nearly did, too.’

  He sighed. ‘I’ve seen it happen before, Pol. It’s too bad.’ He sighed again and then looked at Daran. ‘How’s he doing?’ he asked as if Daran weren’t sitting right there.

  ‘We have some hopes for him,’ Kamion replied. Then he recounted the story of the flogging.

  ‘Good for you, Daran,’ Anrak said approvingly. ‘Oh, before I forget, my uncle Bear-shoulders asked me to pass something along to you.’