Polgara the Sorceress (27 page)

‘I
knew
there had to be a drawback. Where were we?’

‘We were discussing Duke Oldoran’s shortcomings.’

‘And short goings as well, as I recall.’ The Countess Asrana had a quick tongue, and I rather liked her.

‘If the occasion arose, which of the men here at court would be best to replace him?’

“The Earl Mangaran, of course. Have you met him?’

‘I saw him last night. He doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of your duke.’

‘He’s not alone there. Who could possibly love his Bug ship?’

‘Who’s that Tolnedran who seems to have taken up residence in the duke’s pocket?’

‘You mean Gadon? He’s a merchant of some kind, and I think he’s made Oldoran some sort of offer – probably dishonorable and certainly disgusting. Gadon’s been knocking around the palace here for the past half-year buying up court functionaries by the gross. Nobody likes him, but he’s got the duke’s ear, so we have to be civil.’

‘Are you in the mood for some serious plotting this morning, Asrana?’

‘Now that my headache’s gone away, I’m in the mood for almost anything. What should we plot about?’

‘How about a revolution, Countess?’

‘Oh, what fun!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. ‘I’d just
love
to be a party to the downfall of the Bug. Are you going to kill him, Polgara? If you are, can I watch?’

‘You’re a bad girl, Asrana.’

‘I know, and it’s
so
much fun. Are we going to sneak around in the middle of the night holding whispered conversations and secretly smuggling weapons into the palace?’

‘You’ve been reading too many bad epics, Asrana. A good
plot doesn’t work that way. I think we ought to have a talk with Earl Mangaran before we elevate him to the throne, don’t you? He’s of advanced years, and that sort of surprise might be hard on his veins.’

‘Spoilsport. I thought we could give him the throne for his birthday.’

‘Are we likely to encounter much resistance if we move against the duke? Are there any here at court who’d back him? Relatives or officials with something to lose if we deposed him?’

‘Let me deal with them, Lady Polgara. I can wrap just about any man here at court around my little finger if I really want to.’

I’ve broken a few hearts myself on occasion, and I’ve known some of the most outrageous flirts in history, but Countess Asrana was in a class by herself, and I’m certain that her towering self-confidence was fully justified.

After breakfast, the countess sent word to Earl Mangaran, asking him to meet us in the rose garden. Just to be on the safe side, I sent out a searching thought when Asrana and I went into the garden. This wasn’t going to be a conversation we’d care to have overheard.

The Earl Mangaran looked weary as he joined us, but there was a tinge of impishness in his eyes nonetheless.

‘Should I tell him?’ Asrana asked me.

‘You might as well,’ I replied. ‘We won’t get very far with this if he doesn’t know.’

‘I’ve a bit of a surprise fery’, yer Earlship,’ Asrana said in a fair imitation of the brogue of the Wacite peasants. ‘This dear lass with th’ unspeakable beauty is after bein’ th’ Lady Polgara, don’t y’ know. Aren’t y’ honored enough t’ just fall down in a swoon t’ make her acquaintance.’

‘Please, Countess,’ Mangaran said, passing a weary hand across his eyes, ‘I’ve had a very trying morning. His Grace is absolutely impossible just now. He isn’t out of bed yet, and he’s already drunk. Don’t start off with fairy-tales.’

‘But she
is
, my Lord. This is really Polgara the Sorceress.’ Asrana gave me a look of wide-eyed innocence. ‘Sorcerize him, Lady Polgara,’ she urged. ‘Turn him into a toad or something.’

‘Do you mind, Asrana?’ I said.

‘He’s a skeptic, Polly. Make all his hair fall out.’

Nobody had
ever
called me ‘Polly’ before – and nobody had better ever do it again.

‘Please forgive our Countess, my Lady,’ Mangaran said. ‘Sometimes she breaks out in this rash of cleverness. We’ve tried to break her of the habit, but you can see for yourself how fruitless it’s been.’

‘I’ve noticed that, my Lord,’ I said. ‘This time what she says is true, though.’ I absently plucked a deep red rose from a nearby bush. ‘Just to save some time here –’ I held out my hand with the rose lying on my palm. ‘Watch closely,’ I instructed.

I did it slowly, in part to make it more impressive and in part to keep from alerting the Murgo who was somewhere in the palace. The rose on my palm shriveled down to almost nothing, and then it sprouted a tiny, spiraling shoot that grew quite rapidly, branching out as it reached up toward the sun. Leaves appeared first, and then the tips of the twigs swelled into buds. When the buds opened, each new rose was of a different color.

‘Now
that’s
something you don’t see every day, isn’t it, Mangaran?’ Asrana suggested mildly.

The earl appeared more than a little startled. Then he quickly regained his composure. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Vo Astur, Lady Polgara.’ He bowed with exquisite grace.

I translocated my rainbow rosebush into a corner of the nearby flower bed and responded to the earl’s bow with a curtsey. ‘Now that we’ve covered that, we need to talk, my Lord.’

‘You’ve managed to capture my undivided attention. Lady Polgara. I’m at your immediate disposal.’

‘Oh, please don’t dispose of him, Polly,’ Asrana said, her eyes sparkling. ‘If
you
don’t want him, let
me
have him.’

‘That will do, Asrana,’ I told her. Then I looked at Mangaran. ‘Are you in the mood for a touch of treason this morning, my Lord?’ I asked him.

‘I’m an Arend, Lady Polgara,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘I’m always in the mood for mischief.’

Polly’s going to kill our duke,’ Asrana said breathlessly, ‘and I get to watch while she does it.’

‘Me too?’ Mangaran said in a tone every bit as childish as Asrana’s.

‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed. ‘What have I let myself in for?’

‘We’ll be good, Polly,’ Asrana promised. ‘How are we going to exterminate the Bug?’

‘We probably aren’t going to,’ I told them. ‘He might know some things I’ll need. He’s being led down the garden path by a Murgo who’s trying to start a war between Arendia and the Tolnedran empire.’

‘Great Chaldan!’ Mangaran exclaimed. ‘Our duke’s an idiot, but–’

‘He’s not the only one who’s being deceived, my Lord,’ I told him. ‘I’ve just come from Vo Wacune, and the same thing’s been going on there – and probably in Vo Mimbre as well. The Angaraks are trying to stir up dissent and wars here in the west in preparation for an invasion out of Mallorea. My father sent me here to Arendia to put a stop to it. I gather that your duke’s too thick-witted to listen to reason, so I don’t think we’ve got any choice but to depose him and put you in his place.’

‘Me?
Why me?’

Why does
everybody
keep saying that?

I told him why him in the bluntest way imaginable, and even the unflappable Asrana seemed just a little flapped.

‘The duke has a lot of guards, Lady Polgara,’ Earl Mangaran said dubiously, ‘and
they
get paid even when the rest of the army doesn’t. They’ll defend him with their very lives.’

‘We could bribe them,’ Asrana suggested.

‘A man who can be bribed usually isn’t honorable enough to stay bribed,’ Mangaran disagreed.

Asrana shrugged. ‘Poison the lot of them, Polly. I’m sure you’ve got something in that little bag of yours that’ll turn the trick.’

‘That’s not a very good idea, dear,’ I told her. ‘This is Arendia, and the bodyguards have families. If we kill them,
you’ll both spend the rest of your lives looking back over your shoulders for somebody with a knife to come sneaking up behind you. I’ll take care of the bodyguards.’

‘When are we going to do this?’ Earl Mangaran asked.

‘Did you have anything planned for this evening, my Lord?’

‘Nothing that can’t be postponed. Aren’t we moving a little fast, though?’

‘I think we must, my Lord. This
is
Arendia, after all, and
no
plot here is secure for more than a few hours.’

True,’ he sighed. ‘Sad, but true.’

‘Be of good cheer, my Lord Duke,’ Asrana said roguishly. ‘I’ll comfort you while Polly does the dirty work.’

History tends to gloss over revolutions, since they’re an indication of that disunity and internal strife that academics find distressingly messy. They
do
happen, however, and Arendia’s the perfect place for them. I take a certain pride in the one I pulled off in Asturia that summer, because it might just be the only one that’s ever gone from inception to conclusion in a single day. That’s no mean trick in Arendia, where the people just
love
to drag things out. Arends are addicted to high drama, and that always takes time. If it hadn’t been for the presence of Krachack’s counterpart here in Vo Astur, we might have been able to move at a more leisurely pace, but all it would have taken to make the whole thing crumble in my hands would have been a change word in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Asrana looked around furtively, and when she spoke to me it was in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘How do we proceed, Polly?’ she asked me.

A word of advice to my family here. If
anyone
among you
ever
calls me ‘Polly’, you’ll all get boiled hay for supper every night for a week. I let Asrana get away with it for a very specific reason.

‘In the first place, Asrana, you’re going to stop doing that. No crouching, no tip-toeing down dark corridors, and no whispers. Talk in a normal voice and don’t keep looking around like a burglar with a sack-full of loot over his shoulder. When you do that, you might as well wave a flag, blow a trumpet, and hang a sign reading “conspirator” around your neck.’

‘You’re taking all the fun out of this, Polly,’ she pouted.

‘How much fun do you think spending forty years in the dungeon’s going to be?’

‘Not much, I suppose,’ she conceded.

‘Think about it, dear. Keep the idea of sleeping on moldy straw with rats for company firmly in mind all the rest of the day.’ I looked at Earl Mangaran. ‘I gather that Oldoran doesn’t really have much support here in Vo Astur, right?’

‘Almost none, Lady Polgara,’ he replied. ‘The members of his own family support him, of course, and there are a few nobles who’ve been profiting from his misrule. That’s about all – except for those bodyguards I mentioned before.’

‘I’ll take care of the bodyguards,’ I assured him. I thought about it for a moment. ‘Is there someone you can depend on who has a house here in Vo Astur – a house some distance from the palace?’

He thought about it. ‘Baron Torandin sort of fits that description, my Lady.’

‘Does he know how to keep things to himself? And will he do as you ask without needing too many details?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Good. Ask him to have a party at his house this evening. Draw up a guest list that includes everybody with blood ties to the duke and those who have a financial stake in his remaining on the throne. Sprinkle the crowd with some neutrals just so that nothing’s too obvious. I don’t want any of the duke’s partisans around tonight.’

He grinned at me. ‘Torandin’s the perfect choice, then. His parties are famous all over Asturia. Everyone he invites will be there.’

‘Good. Now let’s move on to
our
party. Let’s keep it small and exclusive. The more people who know about our scheme, the more chance there is for word of what we’re up to to reach the wrong ears. I don’t want more than a dozen people to know what we’re doing.’

‘You can’t overthrow a government with only a dozen people, my Lady!’

‘You can if you do it right, my Lord. We’re not going to run around waving swords and shouting slogans. Our scheme’s far more subtle.’

‘That’s a very nasty word, Polly,’ Asrana complained.

‘Which word was that, dear?’

‘ “Scheme.” Couldn’t we find something more uplifting to call it?’

‘Let’s see. How about “plot”? “Conspiracy”, maybe? “Treason”? “Betrayal of trust”? “Violation of a sacred oath”?’

‘None of those sound very nice either,’ she objected.

‘What we’re doing
isn’t
nice, Asrana. Oldoran’s the legal authority here in Asturia, and we’re plotting his overthrow. That makes us criminals – or patriots.’

‘That’s a nicer word. I like that one.’

‘Very well, then, Patriot Asrana. You told me that you could wrap any man in Vo Astur around your little finger. Get to wrapping.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Go out there and start breaking hearts. Flutter your eyelashes, spread around those long, low, suggestive looks, sigh a lot and heave your bosom. Let your eyes fill with luminous tears.’

‘Oh, what fun!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands in glee. ‘Are you going to break hearts too, Polly?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not known here, so the people we’ll be trying to recruit wouldn’t be inclined to listen to me. Besides, I’ve got some other things to take care of. That means that you two will have to make all the necessary contacts. I want a dozen or so cohorts in the proper places at the proper time tonight. See to it.’

‘Have you by any chance ever commanded troops, Lady Polgara?’ Earl Mangaran asked curiously.

‘Not as yet, my Lord. I can usually get things done without bloodshed. Oh, that reminds me. I
am
going to need an archer – the best you can find. I’m going to need one arrow in a very specific place at a very specific time.’

‘I
knew
she was going to kill the duke!’ Asrana exclaimed delightedly.

‘No, dear,’ I told her. ‘I want the duke to come out of this alive. If we kill him, all the people at Baron Torandin’s party will be up in arms tomorrow morning. The arrow’s intended for somebody else. Let’s get started. This day won’t last forever, and we all have a lot to do. And don’t sneak or look guilty. Keep that word “patriot” right in front of your eyes.’

That set things in motion, but the limitations I’d imposed kept our plot from stirring too many ripples. Regardless of their other faults, Arends are among the world’s great plotters. Asrana and Mangaran moved quietly through the courtiers, sounding out the crucial ones and keeping the rest in the dark. Naturally, they extracted oaths of silence and embedded some ridiculous passwords and recognition signals in the minds of our co-conspirators. I guess the only objections they encountered had to do with the haste at which we were moving. A one-day coup didn’t really fit into the Arendish conception of how things ought to be done.

By noon, our conspiracy was fairly well established. Mangaran subverted a few older, more substantial members of the court, and Asrana skimmed off the cream of the young hot-heads. My own contributions that morning were chemical in nature. The wine our co-conspirators drank for the rest of the day wouldn’t have knocked a fly Off the wall. Those most likely to remain loyal to Oldoran drank wine that would not only have gotten the fly, but probably the wall he perched on as well.

It was about an hour or so past noon when Mangaran’s friend, the Marquis Torandin, issued his selective invitations to ‘an intimate little soirée at my residence this evening’. Then Mangaran and Asrana had to go back through the ranks of their cohorts to tell them
not
to protest their exclusion from the festivities. At that particular time in Vo Astur just about everything was suspended when a good party was in the offing, and several plotters seemed torn between the conflicting delights of a good party or a good revolution.

In the second hour past noon, I had to come up with a way to keep the duke at home. I solved that by fortifying the wine he was drinking as he sprawled on his throne. By the third hour, he was comatose.

The ‘Tolnedran’ at his elbow began to have a few suspicions at that point, I think, but we were moving too rapidly for him by now.

Our scheme was ridiculously simple. When you’re dealing with Arends, you should always try to avoid
complexity. Every courtier in the palace had a number of ‘valets’, ‘grooms’, ‘butlers’, and the like in his entourage. Since this was Arendia, these ‘servants’ all had assorted weapons concealed about their persons, and they’d respond immediately to commands even though they didn’t know what was going on. We had plenty of manpower should we need it, but once those who might oppose us had trooped across town to Marquis Torandin’s party, our only opposition might come from the duke’s own bodyguards, and tampering with the wine served to them with their evening meal would neatly get them out from underfoot. The imitation Tolnedran quite probably had a few bully-boys at his disposal, but our superior numbers made us confident that they wouldn’t pose much of a problem. Our excuse for deposing Oldoran would be ‘his Grace’s sudden illness’. There was nothing really ‘sudden’ about it. Oldoran had spent years head-down in a wine barrel to achieve his current condition.

Not long before supper, I took Asrana and Mangaran back out into the rose garden to hammer down some last-minute details. ‘Don’t kill him,’ I instructed them very firmly. ‘Everything will fly apart if you do. I want everybody to pull a long face when we do this. Pretend to be concerned about Oldoran’s health.’ I looked at Mangaran. ‘Did you speak with the abbot?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘He’s got everything ready. Oldoran will have pleasant quarters in the monastery and all the wine he can possibly drink. The abbot will issue periodic statements about his Grace’s condition – which will probably deteriorate as time goes by.’

‘Don’t do anything to help that along,’ I cautioned. ‘Let Oldoran’s liver take him off.’

‘How long’s that likely to take, Polly?’ Asrana asked me.

‘I’d give him about another six months,’ I replied. “The whites of his eyes are already yellow. His liver’s turning to stone. He’ll start raving before long, and
that’s
when you’ll want to start taking his supporters to see him. Let them observe his condition for themselves.’

‘Are you the one who’s making his liver go bad, Polly?’ Asrana asked.

‘No. He’s done that all by himself.’

‘Does wine really do that to people?’

‘Oh, yes, dear. You might want to think about that.’

‘Maybe I’d better cut back just a little bit,’ she said with a slightly worried frown.

‘
I
would. It’s your liver, though. Now, then, I want you two to circulate among our “patriots”. Impress upon them the fact that we’re doing this regretfully. We don’t
want
to do it, but we have no choice. Our revolution grows out of our love for Asturia.’

‘That’s not entirely true, Lady Polgara,’ Mangaran told me candidly.

‘Lie about it, then. Good politics are always based on lies. When you make these speeches, always be sure there are people in the crowd to lead the cheering. Don’t leave anything to chance.’

‘You’re a terrible cynic, Polly,’ Asrana accused.

‘Possibly, but I can live with it. Pressing right along, then.
After
the duke’s safely tucked away in that monastery, talk with some of the local barons. I want lots of armed men in the streets of Vo Astur by morning. Caution the barons that I want their troops to be polite. No looting, no murders, no fires, no incidental rapes. They’ll be out there to maintain order and nothing else.
I’ll
decide what’s disorderly. Let’s not give the opposition any excuses for counter-revolution. Oh, one other thing. Tomorrow morning, an old man with white hair and wearing a white robe is going to come here to the palace. He’s going to make a speech, and I want everybody here at court – drunk or sober – to hear that speech. He’s going to tell everybody that what we’ve done has been done at
his
specific orders. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble after that.’

‘Who in all this world has that much authority?’ Mangaran asked, looking slightly startled.

‘My father, naturally.’

‘Holy Belgarath himself?’ Asrana gasped.

‘I wouldn’t tack “holy” onto him until after you’ve met him, dear,’ I advised. ‘And I wouldn’t turn my back on him, if I were you. He has an eye for the ladies and a little difficulty in keeping his hands to himself.’

‘Really?’
she said archly. ‘What an interesting idea.’ Asrana, it appeared, was worse than I thought.

‘Did you find my archer, Mangaran?’ I asked the earl.

‘Yes, Lady Polgara,’ he replied. ‘His name’s Lammer, and he can thread a needle with an arrow at a hundred paces.’

‘Good. I’ll want to speak with him before we set things in motion.’

‘Ah–’ Mangaran said a bit tentatively, ‘just exactly when’s that going to be, Lady Polgara?’ he asked.

‘When I come into the throne room this evening, my Lord. That’ll be your signal to start.’

‘I’ll watch for you,’ he promised.

‘Do that. Now, let’s get to work.’

I lingered in the rose garden until they’d left. ‘All right, father,’ I said, speaking to a decorative lemon tree, ‘you can come down now.’

He looked just a bit foolish after he’d flown down and resumed his real form. ‘How did you know I was around?’ he asked.

‘Don’t be tiresome, father. You know perfectly well that you can’t hide from me. I
always
know when you’re around.’ I paused. ‘Well? What do you think?’

‘I think you’re taking a lot of chances, and you’re moving too fast.’

‘I have to move fast, father. I can’t be certain just who’s in that Murgo’s pocket.’

‘That’s exactly my point. You’re hanging your whole scheme on the two who just left, and you only met them this morning. Are you sure they can be trusted?’

I treated him to one of those long-suffering sighs. ‘Yes, father,’ I replied, ‘I’m sure. Mangaran has a lot to gain, and he
does
have a few faint tinges of patriotism lurking around his edges.’

‘What about the girl? Isn’t she awfully giddy?’

“That’s a pose, father. Asrana’s very clever, and she’s got at least as much to gain as Mangaran has.’

‘I didn’t exactly follow that, Pol.’

‘A part of the Arendish problem is the fact that women are little more than domestic animals here. Asrana’s going to help take over the government, and when Mangaran’s
elevated to the throne, she’ll be right next to the seat of power. She’ll be someone to reckon with here in Asturia after tonight. This is her only opportunity to seize any kind of power, and she won’t do
anything
to spoil that chance.’