Polgara the Sorceress

by David Eddings

  The putative Duke of Asturia awoke rather suddenly.

  Judging from the slightly disappointed look on his face, soundless screaming isn’t very satisfying. His writhing was inspired, however.

  ‘Good evening, your Grace,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Isn’t the weather mild for so early in the season?’

  Nerasin scrunched himself up into a tight ball, clutching at his stomach and trying with every ounce of his strength to push out at least a small squeak.

  ‘Is something the matter, dear boy?’ I asked, feigning some slight concern. ‘Something you ate or drank no doubt.’ I laid my hand on his profusely sweating forehead. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t seem to be connected to any kind of food. Let me think for a moment.’

  I drew a look of studious concentration over my face while my ‘patient’ thrashed about on his bed.

  Then I snapped my fingers as if a thought had suddenly come to me. ‘Of course!’ I exclaimed. ‘How did I miss it? It’s so obvious. You’ve been a naughty boy, your Grace. You’ve done something lately that you’re very ashamed of. There’s nothing really wrong with your poor little tummy. You’ve got a guilty conscience, that’s all.’ Then I triggered a fresh flow of digestive juices into his stomach.

  This time he was actually able to make a slight squeaking noise – I think he did anyway. I couldn’t be completely sure because he’d rolled off the bed and was crawling around under it. The squeaking might have been the sound of his toe-nails scraping on the floor-boards.

  ‘Help his Grace back into bed, Killane,’ I suggested to my grinning henchman. ‘I want to see what I can do to ease his suffering.’

  Killane reached under the bed, caught Nerasin by one ankle, and dragged him out into the open again. Then he bodily picked up the squirming Asturian and casually dumped him back on the bed.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself, your Grace. My name’s Polgara. You may have heard of me.’

  He even stopped wiggling. His eyes bulged out. ‘Polgara the Sorceress?’ he whispered, looking slightly terrified.

  The physician,’ I corrected. ‘You have a very serious condition, Duke Nerasin, and if you don’t do just exactly what I advise you to do, I can’t hold out much hope for your recovery. First of all, you’re going to send word to the people you have holding Duke Alleran’s son. Tell them to bring the little boy here immediately.’ Then, just to make sure he got my point, I released a fresh flow of gastric juices into his inflamed stomach.

  He immediately tied himself into an intricately complex knot and became very cooperative. There was a bell-pull at the head of his bed and he quite nearly tore it from its mounting when he summoned assorted servants. He gave orders in a hoarse whisper and then fell back on his bed, sweating profusely.

  There, now,’ I said in a motherly sort of way, ‘see how much better you feel already? I’m very pleased with how well your treatment is progressing. We’ll have you back on your feet in no time. Now then, while we’re waiting for your people to bring little Kathandrion here, we’d probably better go over the things you’re going to have to do to prevent a relapse of this dreadful condition. You really don’t want this to happen again, do you?’

  He shook his head violently.

  The Arendish Council will be meeting at the Great Fair again this summer – as it usually does – and I really think you should make plans to attend – for reasons of your health, if you take my meaning. Then, just to be sure that this distressing condition doesn’t recur, you’d probably better call all your spies, assassins, and assorted other troublemakers back here to Vo Astur. All this scheming and plotting is very hard on your stomach, and that delicate conscience of yours could cause all this to flare up again the moment you do anything the least bit dishonorable. It may take a bit of getting used to, Nerasin, but you might very well go down in history as the most honorable man to ever be born in the Duchy of Asturia. Doesn’t that make you proud?’

  He gave me a sickly little smile. ‘Honor’ is a nice word, but the concept was totally alien to Duke Nerasin.

  ‘I think perhaps you should rest now,’ I told him, ‘but first, you’d better pass along orders that no one in Asturia should in any way interfere when my friend and I take little Kathandrion home to his parents. I know that the thought of the child’s happiness just fills your heart with joy, and you wouldn’t even think of hindering me, would you?

  He shook his head so hard this time that it almost flew off.

  Some scruffy-looking ruffians brought Alleran’s young son to Nerasin’s apartments shortly after dawn. ‘Aunt Pol!’ The little boy cried delightedly, running to me on his sturdy little legs. I swept him up into my arms and held him very close for a while.

  Nerasin provided horses for Killane and me and a fairly sizeable escort to take us as far as the Wacite frontier.

  ‘Will th’ belly-ache be after goin’ away in time, melady?’ Killane asked as we rode out of the bleak granite pile known as Vo Astur.

  ‘It’ll seem to, Killane,’ I replied. ‘I’ll probably have to turn it on a few more times before Nerasin falls into line, though. He’ll try something sneaky in a few months, and I’ll set fire to his belly again. He’ll wait a little longer before he tries something else, and I’ll stir the fire again. Nerasin’s a thoroughgoing scoundrel, so I’ll probably have to remind him about “his condition” a half-dozen or so times before he finally decides to behave himself. In the end, Arendia should be fairly quiet – for a generation or so, anyway. After that, who knows?’

  Chapter 19

  It was about noon when Killane and I returned little Kathandrion to Vo Wacune and his distraught parents. They fell all over themselves with gratitude and listened entranced to Killane’s somewhat exaggerated account of just how we’d obtained the boy’s release.

  ‘I think you can pull your archers out of Asturia now, your Grace,’ I told Alleran then. ‘The war’s over, so you can stop ambushing cows and pigs. Duke Nerasin’s seen the light and he’s going to behave himself from now on.’

  ‘You can’t trust that man, Aunt Pol!’ Alleran protested.

  ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, yer Grace,’ Killane said, ‘but th’ rascally Nerasin’ll do just exactly as Lady Polgara tells him t’ do – be it, “quit makin’ war” or “sit up an’ beg”. She’s got her fist wrapped around his tripes, don’t y’ know, an’ he squeals like a pig every time she squeezes.’

  ‘Do you really, Aunt Pol?’ Alleran asked me incredulously.

  ‘Killane’s language is a little colorful, Alleran, but you’ve known him long enough to realize that. The term “tripes” isn’t entirely accurate, but otherwise his description comes fairly close. From here on until the end of his life, Nerasin will fall down in a heap every time he does something that I don’t like. Oh, you’d better let Corrolin know that the war’s over as well, and then you two’d better start brushing up on your manners. Nerasin’s coming to the council meeting this summer.’

  ‘What?’ Alleran exploded. ‘After all the crimes he’s committed?’

  ‘Alleran, dear, that’s what those council meetings are for, remember? We settle disputes over the council table now instead of on the battlefield. Whether we like him or not, Nerasin rules Asturia, so he has to attend those meetings, and so do you and Corrolin.’

  ‘I’d be listening t’ her, yer Grace,’ Killane suggested warningly. ‘She knows exactly how t’ find a man’s tripes now, so I wouldn’t be after makin’ her cross, if I was you.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s yer own personal belly, though, so do as y’ see fit.’

  What a treasure that man was!

  Things were a bit stiff at the meeting of the Arendish Council that summer, but Nerasin,’ casting frequent nervous glances in my direction, was disgustingly obsequious. Alleran and Corrolin were curtly civil to him, but the pair of them obviously had something else up their sleeves. That made me a little nervous, so I watched them very closely. An Arend with a secret under his vest might be able to keep the secret itself in hiding, but c
oncealing the fact that he’s got one is quite beyond his capabilities. Alleran and Corrolin were obviously ‘up to something’.

  The actual business meeting didn’t last long, and it consisted mostly of the Dukes of Wacune and Mimbre dictating peace terms to Nerasin.

  Then, when that was out of the way, Alleran rose to his feet. ‘My Lords,’ he announced quite formally, ‘methinks the time hath come for us to express our undying gratitude to she who guides us through the alien byways of peace.’ Then he looked directly at me. ‘We will brook no opposition in this, my Lady Polgara, for will ye, nil ye, this is our unalterable decision. There have ever been three duchies in Arendia, but from this day forward, that will no longer be true. Duke Corrolin rules Mimbre; Duke Nerasin leads Asturia; and I try as best I can to guide Wacune; but henceforth there will be a fourth duchy in our poor Arendia, and that duchy is thine. I bid thee welcome, your Grace.’ Then he looked around the pavilion. ‘All hail her Grace, the Lady Polgara, Duchess of Erat!’

  ‘Hail Polgara!’ everyone in the ornate tent responded, rising to their feet and then falling to their knees in an excessive genuflection.

  Now that took me completely by surprise. I could immediately think of a dozen reasons why it wasn’t appropriate, but Alleran’s assertion that they were going to do this to me whether I liked it or not silenced my objections. Since they’d seen fit to tack that ‘your Grace’ on to me, I decided to be gracious. I curtsied my acceptance, and they all cheered wildly. ‘My Lords,’ I spoke then, ‘this honor quite o’erwhelms me, and I shall strive to mine utmost to be worthy of it.’ Then, since they were all obviously dying for a speech, I saddled up my vocabulary and galloped it at full tilt around, through, and over the top of them for an hour or so. Then, when their eyes had started to glaze over, I wound down to a stirring conclusion and received the customary standing ovation.

  They presented me with the elaborately decorated proclamation – signed by all three of them – that declared my duchess-hood, and appended thereunto was a description of the boundaries of my realm in profoundly tedious detail.

  I didn’t really have time to read it because of the party that broke out at that point, but as best as I could gather from one brief glance, my duchy lay somewhere in what is now Sendaria. I gave the documents to Killane for safekeeping and then I was caught up in the giddy whirl of celebration of the founding of the fourth Arendish duchy.

  It was fairly late that evening when I returned to my own pavilion to find Killane sitting at a small table illuminated by a pair of candles. He had a map of Sendaria and the scroll defining my boundaries in front of him, and his eyes were a little wild. ‘Have y’ looked at this, yer Grace?’ he asked me.

  They didn’t really give me much time, Killane,’ I replied.

  ‘I wouldn’t be after tryin’ t’ ride around yer entire duchy in a single day, if I was you,’ he said, ‘nor in a week, fer that matter. Y’ go on forever up there!’ He laid his hand on the map. ‘I bin tryin’ t’ mark yer boundaries out on this map, an’ as close as I kin tell, either th’ dukes took leave o’ their senses, or some drunken scribe garbled some descriptions on this scroll. Look fer yerself, me Lady. I’ve inked in yer borders in red.’ He handed me the map.

  I stared at it. ‘This is ridiculous!’ I exclaimed. ‘Let’s go see Alleran. I want some clarification of this.’

  Alleran was very calm about it. He looked at Killane’s map with no apparent surprise. ‘This looks about right to me, Aunt Pol,’ he said. ‘Is there some problem? You can have more land, if you’d like.’

  ‘Alleran,’ I said pointedly, trying to hold down my exasperation, ‘this is well over half of central Sendaria.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘What do you mean, “so?” You’ve got me stretched from Seline to Lake Camaar!’

  ‘Yes, I know. I notice that we didn’t give you an outlet to the sea, though. Would you like to have that coast between Sendar and Camaar? It’s awfully marshy there, but your serfs could probably drain those marshes for you. Did you want that island off the west coast?’

  ‘Serfs?’ I cut in.

  ‘Of course. They’re part of the land, Aunt Pol. When we get back to Wacune, I’ll send word to your vassals up there and have them all come on down and swear fealty to you.’

  ‘Vassals?’

  ‘Naturally. You didn’t think we were saddling you with open wilderness, did you?’ He coughed a slightly embarrassed little cough. ‘Actually, Aunt Pol, I provided the land for your duchy. I’m not sure which of my ancestors annexed all that ground up there, but it’s more than I can handle, to be honest about it. It’s not much of a present, is it? I gave you something I wanted to get rid of anyway.’

  ‘That does take some of the shine off my new title,’ I agreed.

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. The people up there are strange. Sendaria’s been sort of ill-defined for so long that all kinds of people have migrated there. The races are all mixed together, and the population’s definitely not pure Arendish. I don’t know how to deal with them, but you’re far wiser than I am, so I’m sure you’ll manage better than I have. Your vassals – who used to be mine – are all pure Wacite Arends, however, so they’re more or less manageable.’ His expression grew slightly guilty then. ‘You’ll notice that I kept Darine, Muros and Camaar. I hate to appear parsimonious, but I really need the revenues from those three towns. My budget’s been very tight lately.’ Then he smiled slyly. ‘I’ll bet you thought that we were just handing you an empty title, didn’t you, Aunt Pol? You’d probably better get rid of that notion right away. You’ve got a real duchy up north of the River Camaar, and you can do anything with it you wish.’ Then his smile became a smirk. ‘Now you’re going to find out what the rest of us have to go through every day, so I wouldn’t be too quick with any thanks, if I were you. Wait a little while first. Land and everything that goes with it is a responsibility, Aunt Pol, and sometimes it grows very heavy.’

  I noticed that he glossed over the strategic location of the Duchy of Erat. Asturia had been the source of much of the trouble in Arendia for the past few centuries, and now Alleran, Corrolin, and I had that troublesome duchy hemmed in on the north, east, and south to pose a perpetual threat to Nerasin or anybody who might succeed him.

  After we returned to Vo Wacune, Killane and I went on north to have a look at my new domain. I firmly declined Alleran’s offer of an armed escort. I wanted to see what was really going on up there, and I didn’t want knights, pikemen, and fanfares to announce my coming. We rode on up through Muros, took the road leading to Sulturn, and once we forded the north fork of the River Camaar, we were in ‘Erat’.

  ‘Tis fertile ground y’ve got here, me Lady,’ Killane observed on the second day after we’d crossed the river, ‘an’ ample water. With a bit o’ careful management, y’ could git ridiculously wealthy, don’t y’ know.’

  I was looking at a shabby collection of mud and wattle huts huddled a couple of hundred paces back from the road, however, so I wasn’t really paying attention to my friend’s predictions. ‘Serfs?’ I asked, pointing at the miserable hovels.

  ‘It has th’ look of a serfs’ village,’ he agreed.

  ‘Let’s ride into that clump of trees just ahead,’ I said. ‘I want to go have a closer look.’

  ‘After y’ve seen one serfs’ village, y’ve seen ‘em all, me Lady,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘That’s the whole point, Killane. I’ve never seen one up close.’

  We rode back in among the trees, I dismounted, and then I ‘went sparrow’. I flew on back to the huts to look around. There was no furniture inside those hovels, nor anything even remotely resembling a fireplace. Each of them had a pit filled with ashes and charred sticks instead, and each also had a heap of rags in one corner that evidently served as a communal bed. There were a few scrawny dogs wandering about and some equally scrawny children. I flew on out to the nearby fields and saw wretched, dirty people hacking at the earth with the crudest possibl
e tools under the watchful eye of a hard-faced man on horseback.

  The mounted man had a whip in his hand.

  I flew on back to where Killane waited and resumed my own form. ‘That has to go,’ I told him very firmly.

  ‘Th’ village? Tis unsightly t’ be sure, me Lady, but th’ serfs’ve got t’ live someplace.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the village, Killane. I’m talking about serfdom itself.’

  He blinked. ‘But th’ whole o’ society’s based on it, me Lady.’

  ‘Then I’ll just have to rebuild the society, won’t I? We’ll get to that in a little while, but keep it in mind. I will not live my life on the backs of slaves.’

  ‘A serf ain’t no slave, me Lady,’ he objected.

  ‘Oh, really? Maybe someday you can explain the difference to me. Let’s move along, Killane. There’s a lot more to see here than I’d imagined.’

  We stopped in secluded places rather frequently, and I spent a great deal of time wearing feathers as I snooped out the reality that lay just under the surface of my seemingly placid realm. The lives of the serfs were miserable beyond imagining, and the nobility lived in idle luxury, spending – wasting actually – money that grew out of the sweat and misery of their serfs. I found my nobles to be stupid, cruel, lazy, and arrogant. I didn’t like them very much. That was also going to change.

  We reached Sulturn and then turned north and rode on to Medalia, stopping frequently so that I could look into things. The land was fair, I found, but the society definitely wasn’t.