After we’d eaten, I sent a silent, not so subtle message to my father. ‘Go away,’ I told him.
‘What?’
‘Go outside. I need to be alone with Vordai. Go. Now.’
His face grew slightly sullen. ‘I’m going out to turn the boat over,’ he said aloud. There’s no point in letting the rain fill it up with water.’ Then he got up and left, looking slightly ridiculous in that blanket.
‘I’ll help you with the dishes,’ I told our hostess. The little domestic chores we share bring women closer together, but Vordai stubbornly refused to open her heart to me – so I did it the other way. I reached out with a tenuous thought, and once I was past her defensive barrier, I found the source of her life-long bitterness. It was a man, naturally. The origin of women’s problems almost always is. It was a pedestrian thing, actually. When Vordai had been about fifteen, she’d fallen deeply – and silently – in love. The man had been quite a bit older than she was, and to put it bluntly, he was as stupid as a stump. They’d lived in a soggy little village on the edge of the fens, and Vordai’s efforts to attract and capture the heart of the lumpish fellow had been unconventional. She used her gifts to help her neighbors. Unfortunately, her quarry was religious – in the worst possible way. He yearned in the depths of his grubby soul to ‘stamp out the abomination of witchcraft’, and it had been he who had led the mob which had been out to burn her at the stake. She’d been forced to flee into the fens, leaving behind her all hope of love, marriage and children. And that was why – even after three hundred years – she was out here in the fens devoting all her boundless love to the fenlings. Hers was a silly little story of a deep, but misplaced, affection that still burned in her heart.
‘Oh, dear,’ I said, my eyes suddenly filling with tears.
She gave me a startled look, and she suddenly realized that I’d subtly invaded her mind. At first her reaction was one of outrage at my unwelcome invasion, but then she realized that I’d done it out of compassion. I was a sorceress after all, so I had no real objection to witchcraft. Her defensive wall crumbled, and she wailed, ‘Oh, Polgara!’ She began to weep, and I took her in my arms and held her gently for quite some time, stroking her hair and murmuring comfort to her. There wasn’t really anything else I could do. I knew what was wrong now, but there was no way that I could fix it.
The rain let up, and father and I put our now-dry clothes back on and resumed our journey. I spent a lot of time pondering those two meetings while father poled us on though the swamp. Both in the Nadrak mountains and again in Boktor, father had come up with very lame excuses for us not to simply fly back to Annath. Father could come up with all kinds of excuses to avoid work, but on these occasions, his excuses put him directly in its path, and that was so unusual as to get my attention immediately. For some reason, we’d had to meet that old man in the Nadrak mountains and Vordai in the fens. I finally gave up. Father and I weren’t the center of the universe, after all, and perhaps those meetings were for someone else’s benefit.
Well, of course I know who they were for – now. Vordai and the gold-hunter were to be part of Garion’s education, and father and I were little more than bystanders. If s so obvious that I’m surprised you missed it.
We reached Aldurford and made our way along the eastern foothills of the Sendarian Mountains until we struck the little-used track leading up a long valley to Annath. It was mid-afternoon when we reached the stone quarry, and Geran, the newest heir, was waiting for us. Geran had been a gangling adolescent when I’d left for Gar og Nadrak, but he was a young man now. That happens frequently, you know. Sometimes it happens overnight. Unlike most of the young men I’ve raised, Geran had dark, almost black hair, and his eyes were a deep, deep blue. He wasn’t as tall, but he looked a great deal like Riva Iron-grip himself. ‘Aunt Pol!’ he exclaimed with some relief. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t make it back in time for the wedding.’
‘Which wedding was that, dear?’ I’m not sure why I said that I knew which wedding he was talking about.
‘Mine, of course,’ he replied. ‘Ildera and I are getting married next week.’
‘My, my,’ I said. ‘Imagine that’
Village weddings normally involve village people – the bride and groom in particular. Not infrequently, they’re neighbors, and they’ve usually grown up together. This time, however, they not only came from different places, but were of different nationalities. The problems that arose out of those differences didn’t involve the happy couple this time, though. The problems arose from their mothers, Geran’s mother, Alara, and Ildera’s mother, Olane. They detested each other. Ildera’s father, Grettan, was the Chief of his clan, and that seems to have gone to Olane’s head. She made no secret of the fact that to her way of looking at it, Ildera was marrying beneath herself. In Alara’s eyes, her son was the Crown Prince of Riva, and Olane’s condescension really grated on her nerves. I had to virtually ride herd on her constantly to keep her from proudly announcing her son’s eminence. It was a very harrowing time for me.
Perhaps if I hadn’t been away during the final stages of the courtship, I might have been able to head things off, but now it was too late. It had reached the point where the bride and groom were secondary. The personal animosity between Alara and Olane had spread, and the local Sendars and the clansmen from Algaria were unspoken antagonists.
‘All right, gentlemen,’ I said to father and Darral one evening, ‘we’ve got a problem. I’ll keep Alara and Olane from each other’s throats, but you two are going to have to keep order in the streets – and in the local tavern. I don’t want any bloodshed before the ceremony. If these idiots want to beat each other into a large communal pulp, it’s your job to make sure that they do it after the wedding.’
‘I could talk with Knapp, the tavern owner,’ Darral said dubiously. ‘Maybe I could persuade him to close for renovations or something. He might agree. A general brawl would probably wreck his place of business.’
Father shook his head. ‘They’re bad-tempered enough already,’ he said. ‘Closing the tavern would just make it worse.’
‘Close the border, maybe?’ Darral was reaching for straws there. ‘Grettan might agree to that. Or maybe we could stampede their cows. That might keep the Algars busy for a while.’
‘I don’t really care how you do it, gentlemen,’ I told them, ‘but keep the peace. That’s an order, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
Geran and Ildera seemed oblivious to the undeclared war between their mothers. They’d reached that happy stage of mindless obliviousness to everything going on around them that’s the usual prelude to a happy marriage. I’d seen it before, of course. That afternoon in Camaar sort of leaps to mind. It always does, since that was the day I lost my sister. Geran and Ildera didn’t go quite as far as Beldaran and Riva had gone, but they came close.
The antagonism between Alara and Olane didn’t find its outlet in open violence, but rather in competition. They tried to outdo each other in every single detail of the upcoming occasion. They bickered with false smiles frozen in place on their faces about which of them was going to provide the flowers. I headed that off by announcing that I’d take care of it, ‘since you ladies have so many other things to attend to. Besides, I can do it much less expensively than either of you can.’ I even fell back on thrift to fend off an incipient clash of arms.
Then Olane smugly showed off Ildera’s wedding gown, and Alara began to chew on her own liver over that. She tore Annath apart and finally found an out of date and ill fitting doublet for Geran to wear at the ceremony. The doublet was of a faded purple, and it really didn’t, look all that nice, but she crammed her reluctant son into it and then paraded him in front of Olane with a spiteful little smile on her face. I assessed the impact of the dress and the doublet and silently ruled that clash to be a draw. Draws didn’t set too well with the competitors, though. The wedding supper, jointly prepared, was a clear win for Olane. She did have access to unlimited beef, after all. Alara t
ook the one about the officiating priest, however. Olane’s champion was the clan’s priest of Belar, but Alara’s was the local Sendarian priest. Sendars are ecumenical to a fault, so Alara’s priest could invoke the blessing of all seven Gods. I kept my mouth shut about UL, fearing that Alara might postpone the wedding until she could make contact with the Gorim of Ulgo. Alara and Olane bickered back and forth, their faces both locked in those icy smiles that absolutely reeked of false politeness and were meant to conceal their real feelings but didn’t even come close to succeeding. Spurious reasoning about the two priests flowed back and forth until we were all knee-deep in logical fallacies. ‘Both of them!’ I decided finally, just to put an end to it.
‘I didn’t quite follow that, Pol,’ Alara said sweetly.
‘Both priests will officiate.’
‘But–’
‘No buts. Both priests, ladies, and that’s the end of this.’ I had to do that fairly often during that undeclared war.
When the wedding day finally arrived, I was exhausted. If I could just survive this one day, I was definitely going to give myself a vacation. I felt that if I heard, ‘But, Olane, dear–’ or ‘But, Alara, sweetie–’ one more time, I’d just scream.
The ceremony, since there were two priests in contention, dragged on for two hours, and the wedding guests, who were really looking forward to the post-ceremonial festivities, grew restive.
Ildera was stunningly beautiful, and Geran so handsome that the village girls of Annath were almost audibly gnashing their teeth over the fact that they’d let him get away.
I largely ignored the wedding sermons, but I did choke just a bit when the Sendarian priest invoked the blessing of Torak on the marriage. This was most definitely the wrong wedding for that.
Then the ceremony was finally over, and Geran and Ildera were man and wife. They endured the wedding supper, obviously impatient to go to the neat stone cottage Geran and his father had built at the south end of Annath’s single street. They definitely had plans for the evening. Father, Darral, and Grettan kept the peace during the supper, but that was about as far as the pacification went. We all trooped down that long street, accompanying the happy couple home, and then I went back to Darral’s house and fell into bed. I was absolutely exhausted.
The citizens of Annath and the Algar clansmen were all very civilized, of course, so the fights didn’t start until after the sun went down.
Chapter 40
I spoke with father the next morning, and he entertained me with a humorous description of the post-wedding festivities. I always take father’s accounts of such events with a large grain of salt, since father has a deep-seated need for artful embellishment.
‘Broke the priest’s jaw?’ I exclaimed at one point.
‘As neatly as you’d snap a twig,’ father smirked. ‘Caught him right on the point of the chin with his fist. Of course, the priest wasn’t expecting it. Over in Algaria, people don’t hit the priests of Belar. He won’t be giving any of those long-winded sermons of his for a while – at least not until his jaw heals. Then, just after that, Knapp the tavern keeper was trying to get everybody to take the fight outside, and some rascal bonked him on top of the head with a stool.’
‘Bonked?’
‘That’s the sound it made, Pol – “Bonk!” Just like that. Knapp went down like a poled ox, and the revelers continued to break up his tavern.’
I sighed.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I was looking forward to a day of rest. I guess I’d better go tend the injured.’
‘They’ll heal, Pol. It was a friendly fight. Nobody even thought about drawing a dagger.’
‘Broken bones need to be set, father.’
‘You can’t fix everything, Pol.’
‘Who came up with that rule? What are your plans?’
‘I think I’ll go back to the Vale. Chamdar’s in Tolnedra right now, but I’m sure he’s got Grolims and Dagashi snooping around in Sendaria. I don’t want to attract attention to this place, and I am fairly recognizable.’
‘Wise decision. Give my best to the twins.’
‘I’ll do that.’
I spent the rest of the morning tending to the assorted cuts, bruises, abrasions, and broken bones, and then I went on down to visit the newly-weds. They were polite, of course, but I got the distinct impression that they had plans for the rest of the day so I trudged on home and went back to bed.
In the days that followed Alara rearranged the events of the wedding day in her own mind so that it became a day of absolute triumph for her. Oh, well, it didn’t hurt anything, and if it made her happy –
The location of Geran’s cottage down at the south end of town was slightly inconvenient, but that might have had something to do with his selection of the site. His mother was a bit possessive about him and more than just a bit domineering. We all loved her, of course, but she had a tendency to be just a bit erratic. I probably should have paid closer attention to that.
There was a world out there beyond the last house in Annath, however, and it kept moving along, whether we noticed it or not.
It was at about the same time as the wedding that Taur Urgas came up with his insane scheme to assassinate emperor Zakath of Mallorea. The scheme involved Zakath’s beloved, and she was among the casualties when everything fell apart. After that, Zakath became obsessed with the idea of exterminating the Murgo race – a commendable goal, I suppose, but it did sort of get in the way when more important things were going on. Taur Urgas was every bit as crazy as Drosta had said he was, and Zakath wasn’t much better. Cho-Ram of Algaria later cured the insanity of Taur Urgas, and Cyradis, the Seeress of Kell, cured Zakath’s. They used entirely different methods, however.
I don’t think I’d fully realized just how much my isolation in Annath had kept me out of touch with current affairs until father stopped by in the spring of 5349 and told me of the dissension among the Angaraks. There’s a kind of charm about rustic life, but the entire world could end, and it’d take several years for the news to reach a place like Annath.
Then, in the autumn of that same year, tragedy struck my little family. It was an ordinary autumn day with a chill in the air and with the leaves of birch and aspen a riot of bright colors. As usual, Darral and Geran went to work in the stone quarry. Then, just before lunch, the south face of the quarry quite suddenly broke away and fell to the floor of the pit, crushing my nephew, Darral.
Accidents happen all the time, and a stone quarry’s not the safest place in the world to work, but as it turned out, the death of Darral was no accident. It was the first hint we had that Chamdar – or Asharak the Murgo, whichever you prefer – had found us at last.
My grief at Darral’s death almost incapacitated me. Father made it to Annath in time for the funeral, but I almost completely ignored him. I was in no mood for platitudes. I stayed in my room for two weeks, and when I finally came out, father was gone. Alara moved woodenly about her kitchen, but I didn’t really pay much attention. I started taking my meals in my room, since I didn’t want to talk to anybody, much less those who shared my grief.
When I finally did come out, I discovered that Alara had gone strange on me. I was confident that I could take care of it, but that was a mistake. No physician should ever treat the illnesses of her own family, since objectivity is essential in the practice of medicine, and who can be objective about her own family? I delayed, and by the time I got around to my diagnosis, it was too late. Of course, it may have been too late right at the outset, since Alara’s madness had an outside source.
‘Whatever is the matter, Pol?’ she asked me one afternoon a week or so after I’d come out of my seclusion. She’d found me with tears in my eyes and her tone was concerned. ‘Did you hurt yourself ?’ She sounded only mildly interested and a little vague.
I looked at her sharply. Her face was placid, and that should have alerted me right then and there.
‘Come along now, dear,’ she said in a comforting
sort of way. ‘Pull yourself together. It’s time for us to start fixing supper. Darral will be coming home from work soon, and he’ll be hungry.’
That jerked me back to reality almost immediately. I’d seen this delusion in others after a death in the family. Sometimes the human mind does strange things to protect itself. If something’s just too horrible to contemplate, the mind will refuse to contemplate it. In Alara’s mind, Darral was still alive, and he’d be coming home for supper before long.
There are two ways to deal with this not uncommon condition. My own emotional turmoil caused me to choose the wrong one. ‘Have you forgotten, Alara?’ I said mildly. ‘Darral had to go on a business trip. He wants to see if he can find more bidders for our yearly production of stone block.’
‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ She sounded a little hurt.
I reverted to subterfuge at that point. I smacked my forehead with my palm. ‘It’s my fault, Alara,’ I lied. ‘He came home this morning – while you were visiting with Ildera. He told me that there were some builders in Erat he wanted to talk with and that he’d be gone for a few weeks. There were some wagoners who were going in that direction, and one of them had offered him a ride. He had to leave immediately. One of our neighbor ladies fell ill, and I was so busy with her that I forgot to tell you that Darral was away on business. I’m very sorry, Alara.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, Pol,’ she forgave me. Then her face brightened. ‘Here’s a thought. Now that Darral won’t be underfoot for a while, we’ll be able to concentrate on our autumn house-cleaning. We’ll have everything all bright and shiny when he comes home.’
I knew right then that I’d made a mistake, but it was too late now to correct it. The ‘business trip’ would only reinforce Alara’s delusion and make it that much harder to cure in the long run. ‘Why don’t you fix us a light supper, dear?’ I suggested. ‘I have to go tell Ildera something.’
Polgara the Sorceress Page 81