Polgara the Sorceress

by David Eddings

  The house was owned by a wiry little Drasnian name Khalon, and he and I haggled a bit before we concluded the transaction. The poor fellow got himself soundly beaten when I reverted to the Drasnian Secret Language to conduct our negotiations. He was ashamed to admit that he was out of practice, so he accepted a ridiculously low offer without actually translating my gesture into a real number. Then his pride prevented him from confessing that he’d misunderstood. In short, I neatly skinned him and hung his hide on a fence.

  ‘I think I’ve been had,’ Khalon muttered after we’d sealed the transaction with a handshake.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘you have. Why didn’t you ask for clarification?’

  ‘I’d have sooner died. You won’t noise this about, will you?’

  ‘Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. Now, might I ask a favor of you?’

  ‘You want to swindle me out of my furniture, too?’

  ‘No. I’ll furnish my house in my own way. I need an introduction to a man named Hattan.’

  The Algar cattle-buyer?’

  That’s him. Do you know him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s well-known – and hated – here in Muros.’

  ‘Hated?’

  ‘The Tolnedrans absolutely despise him. He knows all the clan chiefs of Algaria by their first names, so he always gets the first pick out of the Algar herds. He skims the cream off the top of every herd that comes over the mountains. Are you thinking of going into the cattle business, Baroness?’

  ‘No, Khalon, not really. It has to do with something else.’

  ‘I’ll be busy packing things – and selling off my furniture – for a few days. Then I’ll take you on around to Hattan’s place of business and introduce you.’

  ‘Are you going back to Boktor, Khalan?’

  ‘No, Baroness. I don’t like Drasnian winters. I’m getting tired of cows. so I’m moving to Camaar. I’ve heard that there’s profit to be made in the spice-trade, and spices smell much nicer than cows.’

  About a week later, Khalon introduced me to Hattan. At my request, he presented me to the tall, lean man dressed in horse-hide as Baroness Pelera. I’ve used assorted pseudonyms over the years, since my real name’s probably engraved on the mind of every Murgo who comes west. After a goodly number of cooperative mothers had named their daughters after the legendary ‘Polgara the Sorceress’, however, that cumbersome subterfuge became unnecessary, and the simplified ‘Pol’ was usually enough to conceal my identity.

  Despite the fact that he’d lived in Sendaria for years, Hattan still wore horse-hide clothing and shaved his head except for the single flowing scalp-lock hanging down his back. His success as a cattle-buyer rested on his Algar heritage, so he made a point of dressing appropriately.

  Hattan and I took to each other immediately. I’ve always liked Algars, since I grew up in their backyard. Hattan didn’t talk a lot and then only in a very quiet voice. When you spend most of your life with cows, you learn not to startle them with loud noises – unless you enjoy rounding them up again.

  Khalon had grossly understated the feelings other cattle-buyers in Muros had for Hattan. Hatred only began to describe it. His intimate contacts with the Algarian clan chiefs gave him an enormous advantage over the Tolnedrans in particular. Algars almost automatically dislike Tolnedrans anyway, so the Algarian clan chiefs made a habit of culling through their herds and reserving the finest cows for Hattan before they ever reached Muros. The sight of all that prime beef that wasn’t available to them drove the Tolnedrans absolutely wild.

  In time, Hattan invited Geran and me to meet his family. His wife, Layna, was a plump, giddy-seeming Sendarian lady who was far more shrewd than she appeared on the surface. Geran was polite to her, but most of his attention was locked on to Eldara, a tall, raven-haired beauty of his own age. Eldara seemed just as taken with him, and the two of them sat looking at each other without saying a word in much the same way as Beldaran and Riva had. I caught a very strong odor of ‘tampering’ in the wind. Destiny – or prophecy, call it what you will – was obviously taking a hand in this matter.

  They seem to be getting along fairly well,’ Hattan noted after Geran and Eldara had silently gazed into each other’s faces for an hour or so.

  ‘But they aren’t saying anything,’ Layna protested.

  ‘Oh, yes they are, Layna,’ Hattan said to his wife. ‘You just aren’t listening. I suppose we’d better start making arrangements.’

  ‘Arrangements for what?’ Layna demanded.

  ‘For the wedding, dear,’ I told her.

  ‘What wedding?’

  That one,’ her husband said, pointing at the silent young couple.

  They’re only sixteen, Hattan. They’re too young to get married.’

  ‘Not really,’ her husband disagreed. ‘Believe me, Layna, I’ve seen this sort of thing in the past. Let’s run them through the marriage ceremony before they start getting creative. This is Sendaria, my love, and the proprieties are sort of important here. Just because you and I got an early start doesn’t need to set a precedent for the children, does it?’

  She blushed furiously.

  ‘Yes, Baroness?’ Hattan said to me with one raised eyebrow.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied.

  We postponed the wedding for a month or so for the sake for appearances, and Hattan, Layna, and I concentrated very hard on making sure that the children were never left alone together. As I recall, I caught Geran climbing out his bedroom window in the middle of the night five or six times during that interminable month. Hattan took a more direct approach. He simply installed iron bars on Eldara’s window.

  It was about noon on an overcast day when Hattan stopped by while Layna was keeping watch over our youthful enthusiasts. ‘I think we need to talk,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Was it about the dowry?’

  ‘Did you want a herd of cows?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  “Then we can skip over that. Pelera’s not your real name, is it, my Lady? You’re actually Belgarath’s daughter, Polgara, aren’t you?’

  I stared at him, stunned. ‘How did you find that out, Hattan?’

  ‘I’ve got eyes, Lady Polgara, and I use them. I’m an Alorn, so I know all the stories. They describe you very precisely. They don’t really do you justice, though. You’re probably the most beautiful woman in the world, but that’s beside the point. Geran’s not really your nephew, is he?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I replied. ‘The relationship’s more complicated, but we simplify it for the sake of convenience.’

  ‘All right,’ the lean Algar said, ‘then I know who he is, too. Don’t worry, Lady Polgara, I know how to keep things to myself. We’re going to have to take some precautions, aren’t we?’

  ‘I can handle it, Hattan.’

  ‘I’m sure you can, but I’d like to lend a hand anyway. Muros might not be the best place in Sendaria for the children to live, you know. There are too many foreigners here. Sulturn or Medalia would probably be safer.’ He squinted at me. ‘I think you’re going to have to move around a lot, you know. If the stories I’ve heard about you are true, you aren’t going to age the way other people do, so you probably shouldn’t stay in one place for more than ten years, and I’d stay clear of the nobility, if I were you. People notice baronesses and other high-born ladies, and you don’t want to be noticed.’

  ‘You’ve thought your way completely through this, haven’t you, Hattan?’

  ‘My daughter’s involved too, so I’ve brooded about it a bit. Would a suggestion offend you?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘When you get on out into the future, you might think about apprenticing these nephews you’re looking after to various craftsmen. A carpenter doesn’t have to explain why he moves from town to town. Craftsmen move around, and nobody’s really curious about why – as long as the craftsman’s good at what he does. Every town’s got a carpenter or two, a couple of brick-masons, an apothecary shop, and so on. A tradesman�
�s a fixture, and he’s invisible to strangers.’

  ‘Hattan, you’re a treasure!’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far, Lady Polgara.’

  ‘You’ve just solved a problem I’ve been beating myself over the head with for several years now. You’ve just told me how to keep a long line of young men invisible, and invisibility’s very difficult. I’ve tried it, so I know.’

  ‘I think your biggest problem’s going to be with the young men themselves,’ he said. ‘It might be safer not to even tell them who they really are. The only trouble with that is that when the important one comes along, he’s going to have to know, because there are things he’s going to have to do – and he might just have to do some of them at short notice.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Interesting problem you’ve got there, Polgara, but I’ll let you work it out.’

  ‘Thanks, Hattan,’ I replied sarcastically.

  ‘No charge, my Lady.’ Then he laughed.

  The wedding took place in late summer that year. Hattan and I overrode Layna’s urges in the direction of extravagance and ostentation. My Algar friend and I were positive that Geran and Eldara would probably have only vague sketchy memories of the ceremony anyway, and there were some obvious reasons for keeping the whole affair rather quiet. In our circumstances, hiring the town-crier to shout the news to the roof-tops of Muros wouldn’t have been the course of prudence. Hattan had some difficulty persuading his wife that there was no real need for a wedding that’d go down in local history books, and I diverted her rather smoothly by raising the issue of Eldara’s wedding gown. I drew rather heavily on the designs of my instructress in the healing arts for that gown. I didn’t exactly copy Arell’s design of Beldaran’s wedding gown – at least not down to the last stitch – but I’ll confess to a bit of constructive plagiarism in the business. The fact that Eldara had raven-black hair while Beldaran’s hair had been pale blonde did dictate a few subtle variations, but all in all, the gown turned out rather well, I thought. Eldara was absolutely radiant when her father escorted her into the wedding chapel, and Geran’s reaction was very much the same as his ultimate paternal grandfather’s had been.

  As I recall, I did choke just a bit when the priest who conducted the ceremony invoked the blessings of the Gods at the conclusion of the ceremony. Sendarian religion is tolerant to a fault, and ecumenicism lies at its very core. Religious tolerance is all well and good, I suppose, but when the kindly old priest asked Torak to bless a union that would ultimately produce the man destined to kill him, I quite nearly went into a seizure. Hattan, who was sitting between his weepy wife and me, took me firmly by the wrist. ‘Steady,’ he murmured.

  ‘Do you know what that priest just did?’ I whispered in a strangled tone.

  He nodded. ‘It was a little inappropriate, I suppose, but it’s only a formality. I’m sure that Torak’s too busy to really be paying attention.’ He paused. ‘You might want to keep an eye out for a dragon lurking around the outskirts of town for the next few weeks, though.’

  ‘A dragon?’

  ‘Don’t the Murgos call Torak “the Dragon-God of Angarak”? I’m sure you could deal with him, Pol, but I’d really rather he didn’t come to pay us a call. Cows are very skittish, and if Torak starts flying over Muros belching fire, it could be very bad for business.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny, Hattan?’

  ‘Me? Why, whatever gave you that idea, Pol?’

  Chapter 27

  Geran and Eldara were deliriously happy, of course. I’ve noticed over the years that these pre-ordained marriages usually are. The Purpose of the Universe has ways of rewarding those who do what it wants them to do. In time – and it actually wasn’t a very long time – Eldara started throwing up every morning, so I knew that things were proceeding normally.

  I delivered her of a son in the early summer of 4013 with a certain satisfaction. Even though Geran and his new wife had done all the work, I took a certain pride in the fact that I’d made all the arrangements and that I was performing my task satisfactorily. The Rivan line was safe – for another generation, anyway.

  Geran and Eldara had decided – after much discussion – to name their new son Davon, and I think that disappointed Hattan, who’d been holding out for an Algarian name for his grandson. Personally, I was just as happy that the baby had been given a more commonplace name. Algarian names tend to be just a trifle over-dramatic, and under the circumstances I didn’t really want anything about the little boy to stand out.

  Eldara’s delivery had been a fairly easy one, and she was soon back on her feet again. I debated with myself at some length before I sat my little family down to have a talk with them. Despite Hattan’s reservations, I’d come to the conclusion that it would be best if the heirs to Iron-grip’s throne, and their wives, should know just exactly who they were and what dangers were lurking around out there. So after supper one evening in the early autumn, I asked Geran and Eldara to come to my library ‘for a little family conference’. I prudently ‘encouraged’ our servants to become very sleepy, and then I took Geran and his wife and baby to my library and closed the door behind us. ‘How much have you told your wife about us, Geran?’ I asked my nephew rather bluntly.

  ‘Well, I didn’t lie to her, Aunt Pol, but there were a few things I sort of glossed over.’

  ‘You kept secrets from me?’ Eldara asked accusingly. ‘I didn’t keep any from you, Geran.’

  ‘He was obeying my orders, Eldara,’ I assured her. ‘We’re talking about a family secret here, and Geran’s been forbidden to reveal it to anybody without my explicit permission.’

  ‘Didn’t you trust me, Aunt Pol?’ she asked, sounding a little hurt.

  ‘I had to get to know you a little better, Eldara. I had to make sure that you knew how to keep things to yourself. Your father’s very good at that, but now and then I’ve come across young ladies who just have to talk about things. I’ve noticed that you’ve got very good sense, though, and you don’t blurt things out. You’ve probably noticed that your husband’s not a Sendar.’

  ‘He told me that he was bom in one of the Alorn kingdoms,’ she replied. ‘We were sort of busy when he told me, so –’ she stopped and blushed.

  ‘I don’t think we need to go into that, Eldara. Actually, Geran’s a Rivan, and he’s a descendant of a very important family on the Isle of the Winds.’

  ‘How important?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t get much more important. It was about eleven years ago when Geran’s family were all murdered by a group of Nyissans. My father and I managed to save Geran, but we were too late to save the others.’

  Her eyes went very wide at that.

  ‘Does it help at all to know that you’d be the Queen of Riva if certain things hadn’t happened, love?’ Geran asked her.

  ‘You don’t act all that much like a king.’ She said it almost accusingly. ‘Are kings supposed to snore the way you do?’

  ‘My grandfather did,’ he replied, shrugging.

  ‘I’ll let you two discuss the finer points of regal behavior when you’re alone,’ I told them. ‘Let’s stick to the point here. Geran has some very determined enemies who’d like nothing better than to kill him – and to kill your baby as well.’

  She drew her sleeping infant closer to her breast. ‘I’d like to see them try!’ she said fiercely.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ I said firmly. ‘Geran’s enemies are very powerful, and they can hire murderers by the dozen and spies by the hundred. I’m sure they’re out there looking for us right now. The safest thing for us to do is to see to it that they don’t find us. There are two ways to do that We can go way out into the mountains and hide in a cave, or we can stay right here in the open and be so ordinary that when they look at us they don’t even see us. We’ll try that second one for right now. I’ve talked things over with your father, and the first thing tomorrow morning, Geran’s going to start out on his new career.’

  ‘What career is that, Aunt Pol?’ Geran as
ked me.

  ‘Your father-in-law’s going to take you into the cattle business, Geran.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about cows.’

  ‘You’re going to learn, and you’re going to pick it up very quickly. Your life depends on it, so you’ll have lots of incentive.’

  And so it was that the heir to the Rivan throne started getting up early so that he could go to work every morning. He was totally confused at first, but Hattan brought him along patiently, and, more importantly, introduced him to the Algar clan-chiefs. It wasn’t too long before Geran was pulling his weight in the family business, and Hattan was quite proud of him.

  ‘He’s very good, Pol,’ Eldara’s father told me after Geran had struck a bargain with one of the Algar clans that involved driving a herd of cows north along the Tolnedran causeway that crossed the fens to Boktor instead of over the Sendarian Mountains to Muros. Everyone did well on that venture – except for the Tolnedrans. They provided the highway, of course, but that was the total extent of their involvement. I’m told that the screams in Tol Honeth echoed for ten miles in either direction along the Nedrane River, and the next year the causeway became a toll-road.

  When Geran was at work, he was surrounded by Hattan’s men, who were for the most part transplanted Algars, and so he was quite safe as he roamed around out in the cowpens. This gave me the opportunity to get to know Eldara better – and to play with the baby, of course.