There wasn’t much danger that Mandorallen’s ancestral home would ever be part of the nameless ruins of the tides of civil war. Vo Mandor was probably what they had in mind when they coined the word ‘unassailable’. It stood atop a rocky knoll, and in the process of construction the builders had hacked away the sides of that knoll to obtain the necessary building stones. The end result was a fortress situated atop a jutting peak with sheer sides hundreds of feet high that defied assault – not that it hadn’t been tried a few times, Arends being what they are and all.
As I thought about it, I reached the conclusion that the site of their place of origin may have played a significant role in the formation of the character of that long, unbroken line of the Barons of Vo Mandor. If you grow up with the conviction that no one can possibly hurt you, it tends to make you just a bit rash.
The town of Vo Mandor surrounded the baron’s walled keep, and the town itself was also walled. It was approached by a long, steep causeway that was frequently interrupted by drawbridges designed to impede access. All in all, Vo Mandor was one of the bleaker places on earth.
The view from the top was magnificent, though.
Mandorin, the then-current baron, was a blocky widower in his mid-forties. He had massive shoulders, silver-shot dark hair, and a beautifully manicured beard. His manners were exquisite. When he bowed, the act was a work of art, and his speech was so sprinkled with interjected compliments that it often took him about a quarter of an hour to wend his way through a sentence.
I liked him, though. Isn’t that odd? Perhaps it’s a character defect. Good manners are such a rarity that I’ll endure excessive language and all sorts of bowing and scraping just to avoid the casual incivility so common in most of the rest of the world.
‘My Lady Polgara,’ the maroon-clad baron greeted me in the courtyard of his grim fortress, ‘the walls of my poor house do tremble as the very leaves at the presence of the paramount lady in all this world within their confines – e’en as the mountains themselves must be seized by convulsive ague as the sense of thy passage doth strike them into their very vitals.’
‘Nicely put, my Lord,’ I congratulated him. ‘Gladly would I linger in this happy place to hear more of thine exquisite speech, but necessity, that cruelest of masters, doth compel me to unseemly – even discourteous – haste.’ I’ve read my share of Arendish epics, and if Baron Mandorin thought he could outtalk me, he was greatly mistaken. I’ve learned over the years that the best way to deal with Arends is to talk them into insensibility. The only problem with that is that they’re as patient as stones, so it takes a while.
Eventually Baron Mandorin escorted me to his private study, a book-lined room carpeted and draped in blue high in the east tower of his castle, and we got down to business – after he’d fetched me a cushion to support my back in the already padded chair he offered me, set a plate of sweetmeats close at hand on the polished, dark wood table, sent for a pot of tea, and placed a footstool close by – just on the off chance that my feet might be tired.
‘Knowest thou my father, my Lord?’ I asked.
‘Holy Belgarath?’ he replied. ‘Intimately, my Lady – which doth raise the question whether any person in all this world could possibly know so towering an individual.’
‘I do, my Lord, and father doesn’t always tower. Sometimes he stoops, but we digress. It hath come to mine attention – and to my father’s – that there is discord in Arendia.’
Mandorin made a rueful face. ‘That, dear Lady, is the most cursory description of several eons of Arendish history it hath ever been my sad pleasure to hear. For ‘certes, discord lieth at the very soul of Arendish existence.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed that. In this particular situation, however, the discord hath its origins outside the boundaries of this most unhappy of realms. Wacune was rent by dissention, and Asturia hath but recently enjoyed the overturn of its government.’
‘Thou speakest as if these events had already passed into the pages of history, my Lady.’
‘Yes, my Lord, they did.’
‘I do surmise that it was thy hand which stilled the waves of contention in the northern duchies.’
‘I had some part in it, yes,’ I admitted modestly. ‘I exposed the identity of an outside agitator to Duke Kathandrion of Wacune and then proceeded on to Vo Astur and overthrew the government of the incompetent Duke Oldoran. Now I’ve come to Mimbre.’
‘I do sense a certain ominous tone in that particular pronouncement, my Lady.’
‘Set thy fears to rest, Baron Mandorin. Thine heart is pure, and thou hast nothing to fear from me. I doubt that I shall have occasion to turn thee into a toad nor stand thee on empty air some miles above us.’
He smiled and inclined his head slightly. ‘Prithee, my Lady,’ he said, ‘when we have leisure, might I beg instruction in the fine art of extravagant speech from thee?’
‘You’re doing fine already, Mandorin,’ I told him in ordinary language. ‘You don’t need any lessons. To work, then. In both Wacune and Asturia, there were men who seemed to be Tolnedran, but were not. They proposed to Kathandrion and separately to Oldoran an alliance with Ran Vordue, dangling the undisputed crown of Arendia before their eyes as a prize for acceptance. Doth this perchance resonate in any way within thy recent memory?’
I didn’t really need to ask, since his face had gone pale and his eyes were very wide.
‘It has a familiar ring to it, I gather?’
‘Indeed, my Lady. A similar proposal hath been broached to our own Duke Corrolin.’
‘I’d rather thought it might have been. Art thou, perchance, within the circle of Duke Corrolin’s immediate advisors?’
‘I do sit on the Privy Council,’ he admitted, ‘and I must confess that I was sore-tempted by this fortuitous offer of alliance with the mighty Tolnedran empire.’
‘I think I’ll need some details, Baron Mandorin. Before I can unseat an opponent, I need to know which horse he’s riding.’
He pondered that, evidently reassessing certain events which had recently taken place in Vo Mimbre. ‘Some months ago a Tolnedran diplomat did, in fact, arrive in the golden city with a proposal, which he assured Duke Corrolin did come directly from the Imperial throne. His credentials did appear immaculate.’
‘Did the Tolnedran ambassador to the court at Vo Mimbre recognize him, my Lord?’
‘The current ambassador from Tol Honeth had fallen ill a month perhaps ‘ere Kadon, the emissary in question, did enter the gates of Vo Mimbre. The illness is obscure, and it doth baffle the finest physicians in all of Mimbre. I do fear me that his Excellency’s days are numbered.’
‘Most convenient, my Lord. Coincidence, though rampant in this troubled world, doth sometimes require some small nudge from human agency to flower.’
‘Poison?’ he gasped, catching my meaning.
‘Quite possibly, my lord. I fear me that certain Nyissan compounds are entering the politics of the other western kingdoms. Prithee, expound unto me the details of the proposal carried to Vo Mimbre by the emissary Kadon.’
‘It doth bear a characteristic Tolnedran stamp, my Lady Polgara, for ‘certes, as all the world doth know, the Tolnedran mind is a masterpiece of complexity and devious motivation. In short, though it doth wound me sorely to offend thy delicate sensibilities by such brutal brevity, I shall speak unto thee in unadorned terms.’
‘I’d appreciate that, Lord Mandorin.’
Aren’t you proud of me? I didn’t once scream at him while he was exploring the outer limits of his vocabulary.
‘As thou art well aware, having but recently come from the northern duchies, great antagonism did exist between Duke Kathandrion of Wacune and the now deposed Duke Oldoran of Asturia, and the Wacites do poise themselves on the Asturian border, bent on nothing less than the obliteration of their cousins to the west. Kadon suggested to our beloved Duke Corrolin that this contention in the north might prove to be an opportunity too golden to be permitted to escape,
and he offered the aid of the legions in grasping this prize.’
‘How, my Lord? What exactly were the legions supposed to do?’
‘Granted safe passage by his Grace Corrolin, forty legions are to march north and poise themselves in northern-most Mimbre. When Duke Kathandrion’s forces do march into Asturia and encircle Vo Astur, the legions will move to fortify the border between Wacune and Asturia. E’en as the legions march, the forces of Duke Corrolin will cross over into the foothills of Ulgoland, move north, and take up positions along Wacune’s eastern frontier. When Kathandrion’s forces begin their assault on Vo Astur, the Mimbrate army will invade Wacune from the east. By virtue of the legions lining the border between the two northern duchies, Kathandrion will be unable to rush home to defend his homeland. Vo Wacune will fall, and Kathandrion and Oldoran are to be permitted to fight a war of mutual extinction in the forests of Asturia. Then, when but few tattered remnants of the armies of Wacune and Asturia do remain, Duke Corrolin, with the aid of the legions, is to sweep both Kathandrion and Oldoran into the dust-bin of history, and all of Arendia will swear fealty to Corrolin, and he will become our undisputed king.’ Mandorin, caught up in spite of himself, delivered this last in ringing tones of exaltation.
‘And you and your duke actually believed this absurdity?’ I asked, hoping to dash some cold water into the face of this enthusiast.
‘I am well-versed in the arts of war. Lady Polgara,’ he said in slightly injured tones. ‘I found no fault nor flaw in this strategy.’
I sighed. ‘Oh dear,’ I murmured, covering my eyes theatrically with one hand. ‘Lord Mandorin,’ I said to him, ‘think for a moment. Northern Arendia is one vast forest. Kathandrion and Oldoran would not meet Corrolin – or the legions – in pitched battle. They would simply melt into the trees. Northern Arends are born with longbows in their hands. The armored knights of Mimbre and the stately ranks of the Tolnedran legions would melt like snow in the spring in sudden rain-squalls of yard-long arrows. There’s a man named Lammer in Vo Astur who can thread a needle with an arrow at two hundred paces. Neither the Mimbrates nor the legions would ever have seen the men who killed them. Armor is decorative, but it won’t stop an arrow.’
‘A most unseemly way to make war,’ he complained.
‘There’s nothing seemly nor polite about war, Baron,’ I told him. ‘Is it polite to pour boiling pitch on visitors? Is it seemly to bash people’s heads in with maces? Is it courteous to run a twenty-foot lance through the body of someone who disagrees with you? But we can discuss courtesy in all its divine intricacies later. Ran Vordue is a Tolnedran. He will not do anything without getting paid for it. To put it in its bluntest terms, what’s in it for him?’
The baron’s face grew troubled. ‘I would die ere offending thee, my Lady,’ he said, ‘but the attachment of thy father to the Alorns is widely known, and thine own sojourn on the Isle of the Winds is legendary. The alliance which Ran Vordue hath proposed is but an initial step in his grand design, the intent of which is the destruction of the Alorns.’
‘And that idea seemed like a good one to Corrolin?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Doth his Grace perchance have an extra hole in his head? It seemeth me that his brains are leaking out. The Alorns, as all the world doth know, have their faults, but no sane man chooses to make war upon them. Hath this supposed Tolnedran, Kadon, seen fit to advise the Privy Council in Vo Mimbre of a grand strategy whereby Arendia and Tolnedra can hope to survive a confrontation with those howling savages of the far north?’
His face went a trifle stiff. ‘We are Arends, my Lady,’ he told me a bit coldly, ‘and are not without our own skills – and our own bravery. Moreover, the Tolnedran legions are the most highly-trained soldiers in all the world.’
‘I am not disparaging thy bravery nor thy skill at arms, my Lord, but an average Alorn doth stand some seven feet tall and is given a sword to play with whilst still in his cradle. Moreover, by ties of blood and religion, the Alorns think and move as one. Though Tolnedra might wish it otherwise, Aloria doth still exist, stretching from Gar og Nadrak to the Isle of the Winds. An attack upon Aloria is, it seemeth me, tantamount to suicide.’ I probably went a little too far there. Arends do have their pride, after all. ‘I’m sorry, Mandorin,’ I apologized. ‘The rashness of the proposal startled me, that’s all.’ I considered the situation. ‘Prithee, my Lord,’ I said, ‘did his Grace actually contemplate this action with nothing more than the unsupported declarations of Kadon to guide him?’
‘Nay, my Lady. Simple observation lent weight to Kadon’s proposal. I do assure thee that Tolnedran legions are even now massing on the southern bank of the River Arend, doubtless preparing for the long march to the point at which the boundaries of the three duchies do converge. Moreover, a Tolnedran general hath also come to Vo Mimbre to confer with the commanders of our forces.’
That truly troubled me. If Ctuchik were also subverting Tolnedra, I had a real problem on my hands. ‘We can discuss this further as we travel the road to Vo Mimbre, my Lord,’ I told Mandorin. ‘It doth appear that what transpires in the golden city hath far greater complexity than what I encountered to the north.’ I paused again. ‘I think that it might not be wise for my name to start echoing through the halls of the ducal palace upon our arrival. I suppose you’d better adopt me, Mandorin.’
He blinked.
‘Thou art a Mimbrate Arend, my Lord,’ I reminded him. Though it is entirely possible that thou couldst singlehandedly assail a fortress, an outright lie is quite beyond thy capabilities. Let us therefore seek out a priest of Chaldan to perform the necessary ceremonies. I will become thy niece, Countess Polina, the flower of an obscure branch of thy family. Thus may I, all unnoticed, seek out the truth in this matter.’
His expression grew slightly pained. ‘That is a flimsy basis for deliberate falsehood, my Lady,’ he objected.
‘Common purpose doth unite us, my Lord, and thine intimate acquaintanceship with mine agéd father doth make us e’en as brother and sister. Let us formalize our happy kinship, then, so that we may in joyous union proceed toward the accomplishment of our goal.’
‘Have thy studies perchance taken thee into the murky realms of law and jurisprudence, Lady Polgara?’ he asked me with a faint smile, ‘for thy speech doth have a legalistic flavor to it.’
‘Why, uncle Mandorin,’ I said, ‘what a thing to suggest.’
The ceremony was a charade, of course, but it satisfied Mandorin’s need for a semblance, at least, of veracity at such time as he’d be obliged to announce our kinship. We went down to the ornate chapel in the baron’s castle as soon as we had changed clothes. Mandorin wore black velvet, and, on an impish sort of whim, I conjured myself up a white satin gown. On the surface, at least, this ‘adoption’ very closely resembled a wedding.
I’ve never understood the Arendish religion, and believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time in Arendia. Chaldan, Bull-God of the Arends, seems to have a fixation on some obscure concept of honor that requires his adherents to slaughter each other on the slightest pretext. The only love an Arend seems really capable of displaying is directed toward his own sense of self-esteem, which he cuddles to his bosom like a beloved puppy. The priest of Chaldan who formalized my kinship with Baron Mandorin was a stem-faced man in an ornate red robe that managed to convey a sense of being somehow armored, but maybe that was only my imagination. He preached a war-like little sermon, urging Mandorin to carve up anybody offering me the slightest impertinence. Then he ordered me to live out my life in total, unreasoning obedience to my guardian and protector.
The fellow obviously didn’t know me.
And when the ceremony was over, I was a full-fledged member of the House of Mandor.
You didn’t know that we were related, did you, Mandorallen?
Given the response of the Dagashi I’d encountered in Wacune and Asturia, I knew that I was going to have to ‘do something’ about the white lock in my hair if I wanted to maintain any kind of anonymity in
Vo Mimbre. I knew that dye, the simplest solution, wouldn’t work. I’d tried that in the past and found that dye simply wouldn’t adhere to the lock. After a bit of thought, I simply designed a coiffure that involved white satin ribbons artfully included in an elaborately braided arrangement that swept back from my face to stream freely down my back. The more I looked at the results in my mirror, the more I liked it. I’ve used it on several occasions since then, and it’s never failed to attract attention – and compliments. Isn’t it odd how an act born out of necessity often produces unexpected benefits? The style was so inherently attractive that I won’t demean it by calling it a disguise. Then, once that identifying lock had been concealed, Baron Mandorin and I, ostentatiously accompanied by twenty or so armored knights, went to Vo Mimbre.
A great deal of nonsense has been written about Vo Mimbre, but say what you will, it is impressive. The terrain upon which that fortress city stands is not spectacularly defensible. It’s no Rak Cthol or Riva by any stretch of the imagination, but then, neither is Mal Zeth in Mallorea. The builders of Vo Mimbre and Mal Zeth had obviously reached a similar conclusion that, put in its simplest terms, goes something like this: ‘If you don’t have a mountain handy, build one.’
Mandorin and I – and our clanking escort – entered Vo Mimbre and rode directly to the ducal palace. We were immediately admitted and escorted directly to Duke Corrolin’s throne-room. I cannot for the life of me remember exactly why, but I once again wore that white satin gown, and I entered that great hall that was decorated with old banners and antique weapons with a faintly bridal aura hovering about me. It was probably a bad idea, since I wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible, but I’m constitutionally incapable of blending in with the wallpaper or furniture.
Baron Mandorin introduced me, and, since he was Mimbrate to the core, rather incidentally noted that he would do vast violence to any man offering me the slightest impertinence. After I’d curtsied to Duke Corrolin, delivered myself of an appropriately girlish and empty-headed greeting, I was gathered up by the ladies of the court and whisked away while the menfolk got down to business. I did have time to note the presence of a dozen or so men wearing Tolnedran mantles in the crowd before I left, however, and when I sent out a probing thought from the middle of that gaily-dressed throng of young Mimbrate noblewomen who were rushing me away, I caught the now familiar dull black tinge that identified Murgos – or Dagashi – and I also sensed some red auras. Evidently, Kadon had raided Ctuchik’s treasury for enough gold to buy up several real Tolnedrans. What troubled me the most, however, was a momentary flicker of glossy black. There was Grolim somewhere in the crowd, and that in itself was an indication that what had happened in Vo Wacune and Vo Astur had been peripheral. The core of Ctuchik’s plot was here in Vo Mimbre.
Polgara the Sorceress Page 29