‘Look him right in the face, cross your arms, and say, “You caught them, so you clean them.” Never deviate from that, even if he’s managed to fall and break his arm. He cleans the fish. You don’t. He may pout about it, but don’t weaken. If you relent even once, you’ll betray all of womankind.’
She laughed. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you, Aunt Pol?’
‘Not even one little bit. Don’t ever clean a fish. Tell him that it’s against your religion or something. Believe me, dear, if you ever clean so much as one fish, you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life.’.
Darral and his little son Geran actually caught fish in that small stream – enough at any rate to still the yearning almost all men fall prey to when they happen across fast water. It took them two days to do it, though, which is a fairly standard period of time for it. Then we moved on, plodding through the mountains toward our destination.
The mountain gorge where Annath lay ran from north to south, and we reached it about mid-afternoon on a glorious summer day. I was struck by the similarity of the village to Emgaard. Mountain towns are almost always strung out along the banks of a stream, and that puts them at the bottom of a gorge. I suppose you could build a village on a hilltop, but you won’t be popular with the women of the town if you do, since the chore of carrying water inevitably falls to the women. Women like to be close to a stream, and most women would be happier if the stream ran through the kitchen.
I liked what I saw about the village, but I did feel an apprehensive chill the first time it came into view. Something rather dreadful was going to happen here in Annath.
Virtually everyone in town turned out when our wagons rolled down the single street. People in small towns do that, you know.
‘Where wuz it y’ wuz a-goin’, stranger?’ a grizzled old codger with a woodsy dialect asked Darral.
‘Right here, friend,’ Darral replied, ‘and I think we can drop that “stranger”. My family and I’ve come here to settle permanently, so I’m sure we’ll all get to know each other.’
‘An’ whut might yer name be?’
Darral grinned at him. ‘Well, it might be “Belgarath” or maybe “Kal Torak”. Would you be inclined to believe me if I offered you one of those?’
‘Not hordly,’ the old fellow chuckled.
‘Oh, well,’ Darral sighed. ‘It was worth a try, I guess. Actually, my name’s Darral, and this is my wife Alara. The lady driving the other wagon’s my Aunt Pol, and the little boy sleeping beside her is my son, Geran.’
‘I’m proud t’ make yer acquaintance, Darral,’ the old fellow said. ‘My name’s Farnstal, an’ I’m usual th’ one as greets strangers – mostly on accounta I’m a nosey old coot. Th’ inn’s on down th’ street a piece, an’ y’ kin settle in thar till y’ makes more permanent arrangements. What might be yer trade, Darral?’
‘I’m a stone-cutter – from over near Sulturn. I used to spend all my time chiseling tombstones, but that’s gloomy work, so I decided to find something more cheerful to do.’
‘If y’ knows yer way around a hammer an’ chisel, y’ve come t’ th’ right place, Darral. Th’ menfolk hereabouts bin choppin’ stone blocks outta that mounting over thar since about three weeks afore th’ earth wuz made, an’ we’ll prob’ly keep on achoppin’ until a couple months after it comes to an end. Why don’t we drift on down t’ th’ inn an’ git you folks settled in? Then we kin all git acquainted.’
Darral was very smooth, you’ll note. His easy manner slipped us into the society of Annath with scarcely a ripple. You’ll also note that he was just a little imprecise about our point of origin. It wasn’t exactly an out and out lie. Medalia and Sulturn aren’t really too far apart – ninety miles or so is about all – so you might say that Darral was only ninety miles from the truth.
We went on down to the tiny inn with most of the townspeople following along behind us. Small towns are almost always like that. We took rooms, and several of the townsmen helped Darral unhitch the horses. The women of the town, of course, homed in on Alara and me, and the children immediately absconded with Geran. By the time the sun went down, we weren’t strangers any more.
Nobody owned the mountain where the local stone-quarry was, so the villagers had formed a ‘share and share alike’ cooperative venture to gouge granite blocks from its side. Farnstal told Darral that ‘a stone-mason feller from Muros comes by in th’ fall t’ take ‘em off our hands every year – which sorta keeps ‘em from pilin’ up an’ gittin’ underfoot. That way we don’t hafta build no wagons er feed no oxen t’ haul ‘em all down t’ civilization an’ git rid of ‘em. I ain’t never bin real close friends with no ox, personal.’
‘You know, I feel much the same way,’ Darral agreed. ‘To my way of looking at it, the proper place for an ox is on the supper-table.’
‘I’ll float my stick alongside yers on that score.’
Darral took his tools to the quarry the next morning and started cutting stone blocks almost as if he’d always lived there, and the women of the town took Alara and me to the upper end of the single street and pointed out a vacant, seriously run-down house.
‘Who does it belong to?’ I asked a plump lady named Elna.
‘Why probably to whoever moves in and fixes the roof,’ Elna replied. ‘The family that owned it all died of the pox about ten years ago, and it’s been standing empty ever since.’
‘It doesn’t really belong to anybody, Pol,’ another matron assured me. ‘I live two houses down, and the place is an awful eyesore the way it is. We’ve all asked our menfolk to tear it down, but you know how men are. The best we’ve been able to get out of them is, “we’ll get around to it – someday”. I haven’t been holding my breath.’
‘We can’t just move in,’ Alara objected.
‘Why not?’ Elna asked her. ‘You need a house, and we need neighbors. The answer’s sitting right there growing moss.’ She looked around at the other ladies. I got the distinct impression that she was the local social lioness. ‘Why don’t we all talk with our husbands this evening, ladies? If Alara here wants formal permission to move into the place, we’ll just tell our menfolk to take a vote on the matter – and we’ll let them all know that they’ll get a steady diet of boiled tripe if they vote wrong.’
They all laughed knowingly at that. Never underestimate the power of the woman who runs the kitchen.
Since it was summer and the evenings were quite long, it only took Darral – and the rest of the men in town – about a week to repair the roof and the doors and windows. Then the town ladies joined Alara and me in a day of furious house-cleaning, and it was all done. We were home, and that’s always very nice.
I don’t know that I’ve ever known a town as friendly as Annath. Everyone there went out of his way to help us get settled in, and they were always dropping by ‘just to visit’. A goodly part of that was due to the isolation of the place, of course, and the hunger for news – any news – of the outside world. Then, when Darral chanced to mention the fact that I was a physician, our place in the community was secure. There’d never been a physician in town before, so now the villagers could go ahead and get sick without the danger of having home remedies rammed down their throats. A lot of home remedies actually do work, but the one thing they all have in common, whether they work or not, is their universally foul taste. I’ve never quite understood where that notion, ‘if it tastes bad, it’s good for you’ came from. Some of my remedies are actually quite delicious.
I didn’t care much for the stone-mason from Muros who came to town that fall followed by a long string of empty wagons. He behaved as if he were doing us a favor by hauling away our stone blocks. I’ve known a lot of businessmen over the years, and businessmen don’t do anything unless it’s profitable. He arrived looking bored, and he sneeringly appraised the neat stacks of stone blocks at the mouth of the quarry. Then he made his offer with a note of finality.
Darral, who knew quite a bit about business himself, was wise
enough to hold his tongue until the fellow had left with his plunder. ‘Was that about what he usually offers?’ he asked the other townsmen.
‘It’s purty much what he alluz pays, Darral,’ old Farnstal replied. ‘It seemed a little light t’ us, fust time he come here, but he wint on an’ on ‘bout th’ expense o’ freightin’ all that stone back t’ Muros an’ sich, an’ then he ups an’ sez “take ‘er or leave ‘er”, an’ thar warn’t no other buyers handy, so we tuk ‘er. It’s gotten t’ be sorta like a habit, I guess. I’m a-ketchin’ a hint that y’ might think we jist got ourselves stung.’
‘I’ve bought granite blocks before, Farnstal, and that wasn’t the price I had to pay.’ Darral squinted at the ceiling. ‘Do we cut stone in the wintertime?’ he asked.
‘‘Tain’t hordly a good idee, Darral,’ Farnstal replied. ‘Th’ snow piles up fearful deep up thar on th’ top edge of the quarry, an’ a good sneeze is all she’d take t’ bust ‘er loose. A feller whut’s roped t’ that stone face could wind up apickin’ a avalanche outten his teeth if somebody happens t’ git hisself a itchy nose at th’ wrong time.’
‘Well then,’ Darral said, ‘when winter comes, I think I’ll take a little trip on down to the low country and ask a few questions about the going price of granite. We’re cutting very fine stone here, gentlemen. Are the other faces all of the same quality?’
“There’s a layer of slate up near the top of the east face,’ a hulking stone-cutter named Wilg rumbled in his deep voice. ‘We don’t waste our time with that, but the man from Muros is good enough to haul it away for us.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he is,’ Darral said sardonically. ‘And he doesn’t even charge us for the hauling, does he?’
‘Not a penny,’ Wilg replied.
‘How charitable of him. I believe I’ll take a small block of our granite and a few slabs of that slate with me when I go. I think I’d like to shop around for some prices. It might just be that next year there’ll be two or three other bidders for our stone. A little competition might teach the man from Muros the value of being truthful and honest with people.’
‘You think he’s been cheating us on the price of our granite?’ Wilg rumbled ominously.
‘It’s not just the granite, Wilg,’ Darral said. ‘Have you ever been in a town of any size?’
‘Medalia once.’
‘What were the roofs of most of the houses made of?’
‘Slate, I think it was.’ Wilg stopped abruptly, his eyes first widening and then narrowing dangerously. ‘We’ve been giving him that slate for nothing, and when he gets it back to Muros, he sells it, right?’
‘It certainly looks that way to me,’ Darral replied.
‘I wonder if I could still catch up to him,’ Wilg muttered grimly, clenching and unclenching his huge fists.
‘Don’t be a-worryin’ yerself none about it, Wilg,’ Farnstal advised. ‘He’s bin skinnin’ us fer years now, so I kin practical guarantee that he’ll come back next fall with his skinnin’ knife all sharp th’ way he alluz does. Then we’ll all be able t’ git in a lick er two at ‘im. He’ll be a-bleedin’ outta places he didn’t even know he had ‘fore he leaves.’ He cocked an eye at my nephew. ‘Yer a real handy feller t’ have around, Darral,’ he said. ‘We bin stuck back here in th’ mountings fer s’ long, we clean fergot how sivilized people acts.’ He shook his head mournfully. ‘Seems ez how bein’ honest jist ain’t in style no more back in sivilization. But I’ll tell y’ one thing fer certain sure.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘Come next summer, there’s one feller from Muros ez is gonna git hisself a quick lesson in honest. After Wilg here holds him down an’ I jump up and down on his belly fer a hour er so, he’ll be s’ honest it’ll jist make y’ sick t’ look at ‘im.’
‘I can hardly wait,’ Darral said with a broad grin.
Darral did make a quick tour of the towns and cities of northern Sendaria that winter, and the local inn was filled to overflowing with eager buyers the next summer. Over his objections, my nephew was appointed by acclamation to handle the negotiations, and the village of Annath was suddenly ankle deep in money. Our local granite, as it turned out, was of the very highest quality, and the slate, which the villagers had literally thrown away, was even better. Darral took the simplest approach to our new would-be buyers. He held an auction – ‘How much am I bid for this stack of blocks?’ and so on. Every buyer went away happy and with his wagons groaning.
The man from Muros was late that year, so he missed all the excitement, and the view of the back end of all those wagons rolling out of town. ‘Where’s the granite?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t expect me and my teamsters to load it on the wagons ourselves, do you?’
‘I’m afraid we don’t have anything for you this year, friend,’ Darral told him in a pleasant tone.
‘What do you mean, you don’t have anything?’ The mason’s voice was shrill. ‘Did every man in the whole town turn lazy? Why didn’t you let me know you didn’t have any stone for me? I’ve made this trip for nothing. This is going to cost you next year, you know. Maybe I won’t even bother next year.’
‘We’ll miss you,’ Darral murmured. ‘Not too much, but we will miss you. There’s a new procedure here in Annath, friend. We hold an auction here now.’
‘Who’d come this far for third-rate stone?’
‘There were about a dozen or so, weren’t there?’ Darral asked the other stone-cutters. ‘I sort of lost count during the bidding.’
‘You can’t do this to me!’ the Muros mason screamed. ‘We’ve got a contract. I’ll have the law on you for this!’
‘What contract?’
‘It’s a verbal contract.’
‘Oh? Who was it with?’
‘It was with Merlo, that’s who.’
The stone-cutters of Annath all burst out laughing. ‘Merlo’s been dead for five years now,’ one of them said, ‘and he was ninety-four when he died. Merlo would say anything anybody wanted him to say, if that somebody happened to be willing to buy him a tankard of beer. He was the town drunk, and his word wasn’t worth any more than the price of the last tankard of beer. If you want to take that to a lawyer, go right ahead. All you’ll get out of it is a quick lesson in real swindling. You won’t get anything from us, but that lawyer will probably get everything you own out of you.’
The stone-mason’s eyes grew desperate. ‘What about all that worthless slate I’ve been hauling away for you?’ he said. ‘I’ll take that, if you haven’t got anything else.’ His eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘I’ll have to charge you for taking it away, though. Always before, I was only doing it out of friendship.’
‘Funny thing about that slate,’ Darral said. ‘A man from Darine looked at it, and he outbid everybody else for it. We got as much for the slate as we did for the granite. Isn’t that strange? Oh, by the way, a couple of my neighbors would like to have a little chat with you.’ He looked over his shoulder at the others. ‘Has anybody seen Wilg and old Farnstal?’ he asked mildly.
‘I think they’re waiting on the road just north of town, Darral,’ one of the quarry workers replied with a sly smirk. ‘I think they want to speak privately with our friend here.’
We didn’t hear either Wilg or Farnstal when they spoke to the man from Muros, but we did hear him. They probably heard him back in Muros.
‘Is he honest now?’ Darral asked the wickedly grinning pair when they returned to town much later.
‘Jist ez honest ez a newborn lamb,’ Farnstal replied. ‘I think it might be on accounta he got hisself religion ‘bout half-way thoo our little discussion.’
‘Religion?’
‘He wuz a-doin’ a whole lotta prayin’ there along tords th’ end, warn’t he, Wilg?’
‘It sounded a lot like praying to me,’ Wilg agreed.
The celebration in Annath that night was longer and more boisterous than the one after the auction had been. Money’s all very nice, but sometimes getting even is even nicer
.
Darral was the hero of Annath after that, and now we were firmly established. I don’t think in all those years that I’ve ever felt more secure. Figuratively speaking, I’d finally found my ‘cave in the mountains’.
In 5338, after we’d been in Annath for about four years, mother paid me another of those visits. ‘You’re going to have to go back to Nyissa, Pol,’ she told me.
‘Now what?’ I grumbled. ‘I thought I had that all settled.’
‘There’s a new Salmissra on the throne, Pol, and the Angaraks are taking another run at her.’
‘I think I’ll fly on down to Rak Cthol and turn Ctuchik into a toad,’ I muttered darkly.
‘It isn’t Ctuchik. This time it’s Zedar again. I think Ctuchik and Zedar are playing some obscure game with each other, and whichever one of them subverts Salmissra wins.’
‘What a bore. I’ll send for father and have him fill in for me here. Then I’ll run on down to Nyissa and settle this once and for all. This is starting to make me tired.’
I wasn’t really very polite to my father when he arrived. I overrode his objections, refused to answer his questions, and flatly told him what to do. It was probably a little blunt. I think there were faint overtones of ‘Sit! Stay!’ involved in it.
When I reached Sthiss Tor, I didn’t bother with bats or anything like that. I simply marched up to the palace door, announced who I was, and told them that I would see Salmissra. Several eunuchs tried to block my way, but that stopped when I started translocating them in all directions. Some found themselves clinging to rafters high overhead and others were suddenly out in the surrounding jungle with no memory of how they got there. Then I transposed myself into the form of that ogress that’d been so useful back on that forest road in southern Sendaria a few eons ago, and I was suddenly all alone in the corridor leading to Salmissra’s throne-room. I changed back and went on in.
Zedar was with the current Salmissra when I entered, and he really looked terrible. He was shabby and run down, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. The five centuries he’d spent in that cave watching his Master mildewing hadn’t really been very good to him. He stared at me as I entered, and the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. ‘Polgara?’ he exclaimed in a startled voice. Someone had evidently described me to him. ‘Is that really you?’
Polgara the Sorceress Page 76