Polgara the Sorceress (42 page)

His answering grin was almost vicious. ‘I owe you, Polgara,’ he said.

‘I didn’t exactly follow that.’

‘My family has certain interests in the commerce with Arendia. If we sell out now, we’ll make a very handsome profit, and if you close the Arendish borders to all Tolnedrans, those holdings are going to be worthless. We’ll make vast amounts of money, and the northern families – who aren’t among my dearest friends anyway – will take a sound drubbing.’

‘What a shame,’ I murmured.

‘Isn’t it, though? And, since I command the legions, I think my army’s going to be far too busy with other matters to have time to run north to force the Arendish frontier.’

‘Isn’t that tragic?’ Ran Borune and I were getting along very well.

‘One favor, Polgara – in return for my withholding the legions from the northern families.’

‘Feel free to ask, dear boy.’

‘You
will
let me know when you’re going to re-open those borders, won’t you? Perhaps a week in advance? Long enough for me to buy up most of the assets of the Vorduvians, Honeths, and Horbites, at any rate. I should be able to buy them out at well below cost. Then, when normal commerce with Arendia resumes, I’ll make millions.’

‘I always like to help a friend get ahead in the world,’ I said.

‘Polgara, I love you!’ he exclaimed exultantly.

‘Ran
Borune!’
I said in feigned shock, ‘we’ve only just met!’

He laughed, and then he danced a little jig of pure delight. ‘I’ll skin them, Polgara!’ he crowed. ‘I’ll skin them alive! I’ll put those arrogant northerners in debt for generations!’

‘After you’ve stripped off their hides, you don’t necessarily have to keep my part in our little arrangement a secret. I think it’d be sort of nice to have all of northern Tolnedra shudder every time someone so much as whispers my name.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ he promised. Then he pointed at his ailing rose-bush. ‘What kind of fish?’ he asked.

‘Carp, I think,’ I replied. They’re bigger – and fatter.’

‘I’ll get right at it. Would you like to go fishing with me?’

‘Some other time, perhaps. I’d better get on back to Arendia. I’ll close the borders in two weeks. That should give you time enough to swindle the northerners.’

‘Come by any time, Polgara. My doors are always open to you.’

I changed form at that point. Ran Borune and I were getting along famously, but I
did
want him to remember exactly who I was. I circled him, brushing his startled face with my wing-tips, and then I flew off.

There are many ways to head off a war, but I’m particularly proud of that one. Not only did I virtually ruin the people who were most offending me, but I also gained a friend.

Arendia remained peaceful after that, and I even began to arrange a few intermarriages to help blur the distinctions which had always been so helpful in starting new wars.

It was early in the twenty-eighth century – about 2710, I believe – when the dukes, Gonerian of Wacune, Kanallan of Asturia, and Enasian of Mimbre made a suggestion that I thought was just a bit on the ridiculous side, but they were so enthusiastic about the whole idea that I somewhat reluctantly went along with them. I think the notion probably originated with Enasian, since the Mimbrates have always been addicted to epic poetry and its overblown conventions. What they proposed was nothing less than a grand tournament involving nobles from all four duchies, with the winner of that tournament – assuming that anyone survived a week or so of formalized mayhem – to be designated my champion.

What did
I
need with a champion?

They were all so terribly sincere, though. ‘Dear Lady,’ Enasian said, with actual tears standing in his eyes, ‘thou
must
have a knight-protector to shield thee from insult and affront. Rude scoundrels, perceiving thine unprotected state, might exceed the bounds of courteous behavior and offer thee incivilities. My brother dukes and I, of course, would leap to thy defense, but it seemeth to me – and Gonerian and Kanallan do heartily agree – that thou shouldst have an invincible knight at arms at thine immedi
ate disposal to chastise knavery whensoever it doth rear its ugly head.’

He was so sincere that I hadn’t the heart to point out the obvious to him. I needed someone to protect and defend me almost as much as I needed a third foot. The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to realize that a ‘sporting event’ – particularly one involving formalized violence – could be a fairly good substitute for war, just in case someone hungered for the ‘good old days’.

Because of its centralized location, we decided to hold the tournament on a field adjoining the Great Arendish Fair. Stands were erected to provide seating for the spectators, lists for jousting with lances and war-horses were laid out, and, sensing a probable need for them, I brought the entire faculty of the College of Practical Medicine in Sulturn along with me to tend to the casualties.

Since the festivities were held in my honor, I was able to ban the more potentially lethal events. I firmly banned the grand melee, for example. There was some pouting about that, but I felt that a generalized tavern-brawl involving men in full armor might tax the capacity of our field-hospital. I also forbade the use of battle-axes and chain maces, and insisted on blunted lances. Quite naturally, the core of the tournament was the exquisitely formal jousting matches – colorful events where knights in shining armor and wearing red or gold or deep blue surcoats charged each other across the bright green turf attempting to unhorse each other with twenty-foot lances. Since even the winner of such an event is likely to hear bells ringing in his head for several hours after his victory, we interspersed other events so that the knights might recover. There were archery contests for the yeomen, catapult matches judged on distance and accuracy for the engineers, and weight lifting, pole-tossing and rock throwing contests for the serfs and freemen. There were other entertainments as well – juggling, singing, and dancing.

It was all very festive, but it went on for
weeks,
and quite naturally I had to sit through all of it wondering just what the prize might be for inhuman patience.

Eventually, as was fairly obvious he would be from the
first round of jousting matches, the ultimate winner was the then-current Baron of Mandor, a massively muscular Mimbrate knight named Mandorathan. I knew him quite well, since my father had urged me to keep an eye on his family. Father quite obviously had plans for the Mandors.

I liked Mandorathan – once I persuaded him to stop falling on his knees every time I entered the room. A man in full armor is so
noisy
when he does that. I
did
notice that the level of civility at my ‘court’ improved enormously when my fully armored champion stood just behind my chair looking ominous. My vassals by now had fairly good manners, but Mandorathan’s presence encouraged them to polish those manners until they positively gleamed.

The twenty-eighth century was a time of peace and prosperity in Arendia, and my duchy flourished, in no small part I think because my vassals followed my lead in the business of enriching the soil. There are many lakes in what is now Sendaria, and most of them have peat bogs surrounding them. I’d discovered on the Isle of the Winds that peat does wonders when plowed into the soil, and if the weather cooperated only slightly, every year in my realm was better than the previous one. I introduced new crops and brought in new strains of cattle from Algaria. I pillaged uncle Beldin’s library for treatises on agriculture – largely written by scholars at the University of Melcene – and I applied the most advanced techniques in my domain. I built roads from farm to market, and to some degree I controlled prices to insure that the farmers in the duchy were not swindled by the merchants who bought their crops. I was denounced in some circles as a busybody, but I didn’t really care about that. I mothered the Duchy of Erat outrageously, and as time went on, my subjects came to realize that ‘Mumsy would take care of everything.’

There were a couple of things that ‘Mumsy’ did that they didn’t like, however. I absolutely insisted that they keep their villages tidy, for one thing, and laborers eager to get to the nearest tavern after work didn’t much enjoy picking up their tools before they went off to celebrate. I also put a stop to wife-beating, a favorite pastime of a surprising number of men. My methods were very direct. A man who’s
stupid enough to beat his wife isn’t likely to listen to reason, so I instructed the constable of each village to ‘persuade’ wife-beaters to find another hobby. I
did
urge the constables not break
too
many bones in the process, however. A man with two broken legs can’t really put in a full day’s work, after all. There was, I remember, one
very
thick-headed fellow in the village of Mid Tolling who was so stubborn about it that he wound up with both arms and both legs broken before he got the point. After that, he was the politest husband you’ve ever seen.

The tournament at the Great Arendish Fair became a fixture, an addendum, if you will, to the annual meeting of the Arendish Council, and I think that made the chore of keeping the peace even easier. Toward the end of the century, however, the Oriman family came into power in Asturia, and the relations between the four duchies became strained. The Orimans were greedy, ambitious and devoid of anything remotely resembling scruples. The first of the Oriman dukes was a rat-like little fellow who thought he was clever. His name was Garteon, and he began to find excuses not to attend the meetings of the Arendish Council. After the third year marked by his absence, I decided to go have a talk with him. My champion at that particular time was one of my own barons, a huge man of Alorn background named Torgun. We rode on down to Vo Astur, and Baron Torgun let it be known that he’d dismantle large numbers of people if I were not immediately escorted into Duke Garteon’s presence. Alorns
can
be useful at times.

The unctuous little Garteon greeted me with an oily smile and fell all over himself apologizing for his repeated absences.

‘Have you by chance heard of “Nerasin’s complaint”, your Grace?’ I cut him off. ‘You show all the symptoms of an onset of the disease to me, and I
am
a trained physician, so I recognize all kinds of illnesses. I’d strongly advise you to make a special point of attending the council meeting next summer. Duke Nerasin found squirming around on the floor while he squealed and vomited up blood to be terribly inconvenient.’

Garteon’s face went very pale. ‘I’ll be there, Lady
Polgara,’ he promised. Evidently Nerasin’s tummy-ache had entered the body of Asturian folk-lore.

‘We’ll be expecting you then,’ I said quite firmly. Then Baron Torgun and I left Vo Astur.

‘You should have let me split him down the middle, my Lady,’ Torgun growled as we rode away.

‘We’re supposed to be civilized, Baron,’ I replied. ‘Civilized people don’t hack up their neighbors. I think Garteon got my message. If he doesn’t show up at the meeting next summer, I might have to be a bit more firm the next time he and I have one of these little chats.’

‘Can you really do that?’ Torgun asked curiously. ‘I mean, can you actually make a man start throwing up blood?’

‘If I need to, yes.’

‘What do you need
me
for, then?’

‘For the pleasure of your companionship, my dear Torgun. Let’s move right along, shall we? It’s almost harvest time, so there are all kinds of things that need my attention.’

Garteon of Asturia was defenestrated by his barons a few years later. That’s one of the disadvantages of living in a palace with high towers. There’s always the possibility of ‘accidentally’ falling out of a window about seven stories above a flagstoned courtyard.

His son, also named Garteon, was probably an even greater scoundrel than his father. Asturia was getting to be a problem.

We entered the thirtieth century, and I realized that I’d been manipulating Arendish affairs for almost six hundred years. I rather enjoyed it, actually. The Arends were much like children in many ways, and they’d come to look upon me as a wise parent to whom they brought most of their problems. More importantly, maybe, was the fact that they checked with me before they put anything major in motion. I was able to head off all sorts of potential disasters because of that.

It was in the spring of 2937 that I advised my co-rulers that Torgun’s successor as my champion, a Mimbrate knight named Anclasin, was getting along in years and that his hearing was beginning to fail. Moreover, he had a number of grandchildren down in Mimbre, and he really wanted
to spend more time with them. Parenthood is nice, but grandparenthood is golden.

This, of course, added a certain excitement to the annual tourney at the Great Fair that summer. The winner, always referred to as ‘the mightiest knight of life,’ would be rewarded with the dubious pleasure of living under my thumb for the next several decades.

I arrived at the fair a few days early that summer, and my seneschal, one of Killane’s descendants, nosed about and brought me some rather disturbing news. It seemed that an enterprising Drasnian merchant was accepting wagers on the outcome of the tournaments. Now, if someone wants to waste his money on gambling, that’s none of my concern. What I
didn’t
want was for someone to start tampering with the various events in order to determine the winner in advance. I spoke rather pointedly with the Drasnian, laying down a few rules for him to follow in his venture. The rules were fairly simple. No bribes. No tampering with equipment. No introduction of exotic herbs into the diets of contestants or of their horses. The Drasnian entrepreneur’s expression was a little pained when he left my pavilion. Quite obviously, he’d had some plans that I’d just disrupted.

A formal tournament can be viewed as a kind of refinery where the slag is boiled away and only the true gold is left behind. That’s probably a very offensive metaphor to those who end up on the slag-heap, but life is hard sometimes, I guess. The winnowing-down process went on for several weeks, and eventually there were only two contenders left, a pair of Wacite noblemen, Lathan and Ontrose, who’d been boyhood friends of Duke Andrion. Baron Lathan was a big, boisterous fellow with dark blond hair, and Count Ontrose was a more studious and polished man with black hair and deep blue eyes. I’d known the both of them since they were children, and I was really quite fond of them. Frankly, I was a bit surprised that the cultured Count Ontrose had advanced so far in a competition that was largely based on brute strength.