Polgara the Sorceress (26 page)

‘I shall provide thee with an escort, Polgara.’

‘Kathandrion,’ I reminded him gently, ‘you’re technically at war with Asturia, remember? If I go to Vo Astur with a Wacite escort, aren’t people likely to talk?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I did it again, didn’t I?’ He looked a bit embarrassed.

‘I’m afraid so, my friend. We’re going to have to work on that. Don’t be concerned, Kathandrion. The Asturians won’t even see me – until I’m ready for them to.’

I left later that same day, and after Lady and I had traveled for about an hour, I probed the surrounding forest with my thought. There weren’t any Arends in the vicinity, but there
was
someone else. ‘Well, father,’ I said aloud, ‘are you coming along or not?’

His silence was just ever so slightly guilty. ‘Keep your nose out of this, Old Man,’ I told him. ‘I think this is one of those “tests” you’re so fond of talking about. Watch, but don’t get involved. You can grade me after it’s all over. Oh, I’m going on ahead. Since you insist on trailing along after me, why don’t you bring Lady with you.’

I
love
to do that to him.

Events were moving at a quickening pace, so speed was very important. I’d decided earlier to forego my favorite alternative form and to use a falcon instead.

Vo Astur was constructed of granite, and its grey walls were thick and high and surmounted by grim battlements. It was a depressing city that crouched on the southern bank of the Astur River. There were centuries-old feuds going on in Asturia, and every nobleman of any consequence lived inside a fort. The seat of the Asturian government
was no exception. Asturia was filled to the brim with intrigue, plots, ambushes, poisonings, and surprise attacks, so caution was the course of prudence, I guess.

There was no real point in going through the inevitable interrogation at the city gate, so I spiraled down toward the ducal palace instead as evening drew over the fortified city. I settled unobserved in a secluded corner of the courtyard and resumed my real form. Then I slipped around the outer edge of the flagstoned yard, approached the ornate door of the palace, ‘encouraged’ the guards to take a brief nap, and went on inside.

My father had frequently impressed upon me the idea that there are times when it’s necessary for us to be unremarkable in the presence of others, and he’s devised many ways to achieve that. My own favorite is to exude a sense of familiarity. It’s a subtle sort of thing. People can look at me without actually seeing me. They’re sure that they know me, but they can’t quite remember my name. In social situations, this can be very useful. In effect, I just become a part of the background.

Kathandrion had advised me that the Asturians spoke an ‘outlandish dialect’, so I loitered in a long, dim corridor until a group of gaily-dressed courtiers, both men and women, came by, and I joined them and listened carefully as they spoke. I noted that the Asturians had discarded ‘high style’ and spoke to each other in a more commonplace fashion. Asturia was bounded on one side by the Sea of the West, and she had far more contact with outsiders than did either Wacune or Mimbre. The people here yearned to be ‘modern’, and so they rather slavishly imitated the speech of those outsiders with whom they came in contact. Unfortunately, many of those outsiders just happened to be sailors, and sailors probably aren’t the best source of linguistic elegance. I devoutly hoped that the giddy young ladies in the group I’d joined didn’t fully understand the meaning of some of the words and phrases that tumbled from their lips.

Since all three of the Arendish dukes had royal pretensions, each of their palaces had a ‘throne-room’, and Astur was no exception. The cluster of nobles I’d joined entered
the central hall that served that purpose here, and I drifted away from them and worked my way through the slightly tipsy throng toward the front of the hall.

Over the years I’ve had occasion to observe drunkenness in its assorted forms, and I’ve noticed some variations. A man who’s over-indulged in beer or ale is rowdier than one soaked in wine, and those who prefer distilled spirits tend toward open belligerence. The Asturians preferred wine, and wine-tipplers either giggle or weep when in their cups. The Arendish fondness for high tragedy made them lean in the direction of melancholy. A drinking party in Asturia is a gloomy sort of affair, rather on the order of a funeral on a rainy night.

Oldoran, the Asturian Duke, was a small ratty little man, and he was obviously far gone in drink. He sprawled morosely on his throne with a look of profound suffering on his pouchy little face. A man in a Tolnedran mantle of an unappetizing yellow color stood just at his right elbow, frequently leaning over to whisper in the duke’s ear. I carefully sent out a probing thought, and the color that came back from the supposed Tolnedran was
not
red. It appeared that I had another Murgo on my hands.

I spent the next couple of hours drifting around the hall and listening to snatches of conversation. I soon gathered that Duke Oldoran was not held in very high regard. ‘Drunken little weasel’ was probably the kindest thing I heard said of him. I further gathered that Oldoran was almost completely in the grasp of the counterfeit Tolnedran at his side. Though I was fairly sure that I could sever that particular connection, I couldn’t for the life of me see any advantage to be had from it. I could probably change Oldoran’s opinions, but I couldn’t change Oldoran himself. He was a petty, self-pitying drunkard with very little intelligence and with that sublime belief so common among the truly stupid that he was the most clever man in all the world. I had a problem here.

The sodden little Oldoran kept calling for more wine, and he eventually lapsed into unconsciousness.

‘It would appear that our beloved duke is a trifle indisposed,’ an elderly courtier with snowy hair, but
surprisingly youthful eyes, noted in a dryly ironic tone. ‘How do you think we should deal with this, my lords and ladies? Should we put him to bed? Should we dunk him in that fishpond in the garden until he regains his senses? Or, should we perhaps adjourn to some other place where our revelry won’t interrupt his snoring?’ He bowed to the laughing throng ironically. ‘I shall be guided by the collective wisdom of the court in this matter. How say you, nobles all?’

‘I like the fishpond myself,’ one matronly lady suggested.

‘Oh, dear, no, Baroness!’ a pretty young lady with dark hair and mischievous eyes objected. ‘Think of what that would do to the poor carp who live there.’

‘If we’re going to dump Oldoran in his bed, we’d better wring him out a little first, my Lord Mangaran,’ one half-drunk courtier bellowed to the ironical old nobleman. “The little sot’s soaked up so much wine that he’s almost afloat.’

‘Yes,’ the Lord Mangaran murmured. ‘I noticed that myself. His Grace has an amazing capacity for one so dwarfed.’

Then the pretty lady with the mischievous eyes struck an overly dramatic pose. ‘My lords and ladies,’ she declaimed, ‘I suggest a moment of silence out of respect for our poor little Oldoran. Then perhaps we’d better leave him in the capable hands of Earl Mangaran, who’s performed this office so often that he doesn’t really need our advice. Then, after his Grace has been wrung out and poured into bed, we can toast the good fortune that’s removed him from our midst.’

They all bowed their heads, but the ‘moment of silence’ was marred by a certain amount of muffled laughter.

I’m sure that Lelldorin, and indeed all Asturians, will be offended by what I’ve just set down, but it
is
the truth. It took centuries of suffering to grind the rough edges off the crude, unscrupulous Asturians. That was my first encounter with them, and in many ways they almost seemed like southern Alorns.

The young lady who’d just proposed that moment of silence laid the back of her wrist theatrically to her forehead.
‘Would someone please bring me another cup of wine,’ she asked in a tragic voice. ‘Speaking in public absolutely exhausts me.’

The Murgo who’d been at Oldoran’s elbow had faded back into the crowd, and so he was nowhere to be seen when a pair of burly footmen hoisted the snoring duke from his throne and bore him from the hall.

I withdrew to a little alcove to consider the situation. My original plan when I’d left Vo Wacune had been to expose the resident Murgo here to the duke and then let
him
deal with it, but Oldoran wasn’t in the same class with Kathandrion, and I’ve observed over the years that stupid people rarely change their minds. I fell back on logic at that point. If Oldoran wouldn’t suit my purposes, the simplest course would be to replace him with someone who would.

The more I thought about that, the better I liked the idea. The Murgo wouldn’t be expecting it, for one thing. My father and uncle Beldin had described the Angarak character to me on many occasions, and Angaraks are constitutionally incapable of questioning authority of any kind. The word ‘revolution’ is simply not in their vocabulary.

The course of action I was considering was certainly not new. Arendish history is full of accounts of what are called ‘palace coups’, little disturbances that had usually resulted in the death of an incumbent. I didn’t want it to go
that
far here, but I
did
want Oldoran off that throne. What I’d seen that evening strongly suggested that most of the nobles here at court shared that desire. My only problem now was the selection of Oldoran’s replacement –
and
a means of getting to him on fairly short notice.

I napped briefly in an unoccupied sitting-room and went back to the central hall early the next morning to ask some questions about the clever, dark-haired young lady who’d humorously proposed that moment of silence. I described her to the servants who were cleaning up the debris of the previous evening’s festivities.

‘That would be the Countess Asrana, my Lady,’ a sober-faced cleaning man told me. ‘She’s a notorious flirt and very witty.’

‘That’s the one,’ I said. ‘I think she and I were introduced
some years back, and I thought I’d look her up. Where do you suppose I might find her?’

‘Her apartment’s in the west tower, my Lady, on the ground floor.’

‘Thank you,’ I murmured, gave him a small coin, and went looking for the west tower.

The countess was just a trifle indisposed when her maid escorted me into the room where she lay on a divan with bleary eyes and a cold, wet cloth on her forehead. ‘I don’t believe I know you,’ she told me in a tragic voice.

‘Are you unwell?’ I asked her.

‘I’m feeling just a little delicate this morning,’ she confessed. ‘I wish it were winter. If it were, I’d go out into the courtyard and stick my head in a snow bank for an hour or so.’ Then she looked at me more closely. ‘You look awfully familiar, for some reason.’

‘I don’t think we’ve ever met, countess.’

‘It’s not that we’ve met, I don’t think. It’s something I’ve heard about.’ She put her fingertips to her temples. ‘Oh, dear,’ she groaned.

‘We need to talk, Asrana,’ I told her, ‘but I’d better do something about your condition first’ I opened the small reticule I carried and took out a glass vial. I poured the contents into the bottom of a cup that was standing on a sideboard and then filled the cup with water. This won’t taste very good,’ I warned.

‘Will it make me feel better?’

‘It should.’

‘Then I really don’t care what it tastes like.’ She drank it and then shuddered. That’s dreadful,’ she said. ‘You’re a physician?’ she asked.

‘I’ve had some training along those lines,’ I admitted.

‘What a peculiar occupation for a lady of rank,’ she said. She touched her forehead. ‘I believe it’s actually getting better.’

“That was the whole idea, countess. As soon as the potion I just gave you takes hold a little more, there’s something I’d like to talk with you about.’

‘I owe you my life, dear Lady,’ she said extravagantly. ‘But I still seem to know you for some reason.’ Then she
made a little face. ‘Of course, on mornings like this one all sorts of strange ideas come to me.’ She shook her head slightly. ‘Amazing!’ she said. ‘My head didn’t fall off. You could make a fortune with that potion here in Vo Astur, you know. Everybody in the palace probably feels as awful as I did a while ago. Whatever it was you gave me is miraculous. I think I’ll actually live now. It’s almost like magic.’ She stopped suddenly and looked at me as if really seeing me for the first time. Then she started to tremble. ‘It
was
magic, wasn’t it?’

‘No, dear. Not really.’

‘Oh, yes it was! You’ve got that white lock in your hair, and you’re a physician. You’re Polgara the Sorceress, aren’t you? You’re Belgarath’s daughter!’

‘My terrible secret’s out, I see,’ I sighed with mock regret.

‘You’re a million years old!’

I touched my cheek. ‘Does it really show that much, Asrana?’

‘Of course not, Lady Polgara,’ she replied. ‘You don’t look a day over a hundred thousand.’ Then we both laughed, and she winced. ‘Rushing things a bit there,’ she noted, touching her forehead slightly. ‘Please don’t make me laugh for a little while yet. Your spell hasn’t really had time to get to the bottom of this headache yet.’

‘It wasn’t really a spell, Asrana – just a mixture of some fairly common herbs.’ I decided not to make an issue of the fact that her mornings would be much more enjoyable if she didn’t drink so much wine every evening. ‘Is there something you could send your maid to fetch for you?’ I asked her. ‘I’d like to talk to you without anyone around.’

‘Breakfast, I think. I’m suddenly ravenous. Would you join me?’

‘I’d be delighted, dear.’

After the girl had left, Asrana and I got down to business. ‘I’m not trying to be offensive, Countess, but I’m not very much impressed by your duke.’

‘Who is? We all have to be careful not to step on him when he’s in the throne room. Do you happen to have a cure for minisculism? Oldoran should probably take a double dose if you do. He’s a bug, Polgara, so stepping on
him’s a natural reaction. Life around here would be much simpler if somebody’d just squish him and have done with it. Would you care for some wine?’

‘Ah – not just now, Asrana, and you’d probably better drink water this morning, too. Mixing wine with the potion I just gave you would make you terribly ill.’