Polgara the Sorceress (55 page)

“The entry’s a hundred and eighty years old, my Lady.’

‘Has it been that long? Where
does
the time go?’

‘I’ll have to consult with King Falben about this, my Lady. The account’s under royal protection, so he’s the only one who can release funds.’

I sighed. ‘What a bother. Please keep this to yourself, Baron. I have reasons for not wanting my business here to become general knowledge.’

‘Only the king shall know of it, my Lady.’

King Falben of Sendaria was a plain-looking man dressed in sober brown. He was about forty, and there was a bustling sort of air about him that you see in people who have a dozen or more things to do all at the same time. ‘Now,’ he said as he entered the office, ‘what’s this all about, my Lady? Stilnan here was babbling something about a very old account in the royal treasury.’

‘The baron summed it up fairly well, then, your Majesty,’ I replied with a formal curtsey. ‘I placed the funds in the royal treasury some years back. I need some money right now, so I’m here to withdraw part of the account. Why don’t you show his Majesty the entry in the account book, Baron Stilnan?’ I suggested, ‘and the attached document? It might save some time.’

Falben read the relevant material quickly. ‘You claim to be the Lady Polgara?’ he demanded of me, his tone suspicious.

‘She doesn’t claim to be, your Majesty,’ Geran told him. ‘She
is
Lady Polgara.’

‘My nephew, Geran,’ I introduced the young man.

‘I’ll need something more than just his word, my Lady,’ Falben said. ‘There are all sorts of swindlers running around these days.’

‘Oh, very well,’ I sighed. Then I elevated the King of Sendaria. I’ve found that to be the fastest way to prove my
identity to sceptics. There’s something about standing on empty air that almost immediately brings people around to my way of thinking. ‘Satisfied?’ I asked the startled monarch. He stood frozen in mid-air, his eyes wide with astonishment. He nodded violently, and I gently lowered him to the floor. ‘I’m sorry, your Majesty,’ I apologized. ‘We’re both busy, and that usually settles these tiresome arguments in the shortest possible time.’

‘I can see why,’ Falben said in a strained tone of voice Then he went to Stilnan’s desk and looked at the open account book. ‘Did you want to withdraw the entire balance, Lady Polgara?’ he asked, sounding slightly worried.

‘How much is there? I haven’t been keeping track of it.’

The last entry shows something over a half million nobles, my Lady.’

The noble’s a one-ounce gold coin?’

He nodded.

‘I don’t think it’d be a good idea for me to leave here with fifteen tons of gold in my pocket, do you?’

He laughed weakly. ‘You
could
do it if you wanted to. Lady Polgara. I’ve heard stories about you.’

‘Exaggerations, your Majesty. I think five hundred nobles should cover my current expenses.’

‘Fetch it, Stilnan,’ the king commanded. ‘I have a confession to make, Lady Polgara.’

‘Honest confession is good for the soul, your Majesty.’

‘I’m ashamed to admit that your account’s a little encumbered. We’ve occasionally used it as security for temporary loans when our tax revenues fell a little short of our current needs.’

That’s a legitimate use for dormant money, your Majesty,’ I forgave him.

‘Might I ask the source of this fortune?’

‘Rents, your Majesty. My duchy was extensive and I’ve been renting out farmsteads for quite a long time now. I don’t really charge that much rent, but it
does
seem to be piling up, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ll buy something with it someday – Tol Honeth, perhaps.’

He laughed. ‘It’s probably for sale, Lady Polgara. Everything the Tolnedrans own is for sale.’

Baron Stilnan returned with two large canvas bags of jingling coins. He insisted that I count the money, and then he entered the transaction in the musty old account book.

‘Oh, one last thing, your Majesty,’ I said. ‘I’d rather that word of this visit didn’t get noised about.’

‘Which visit was that, Lady Polgara? I have a terrible memory.’

I laughed, curtsied, and then Geran and I left the royal palace.

‘He seemed like a nice enough fellow,’ Geran noted, plodding along beside me through the streets of Sendar with those two jingling canvas bags.

‘I rather liked him,’ I agreed. Then I frowned. ‘When gold coins rattle together, they make a very distinctive sound, don’t they? I think I’d better devise some way to keep them quiet. We don’t want to attract attention.’

‘Are we going home now, Aunt Pol?’

‘No, Geran. Actually, we’re going to Muros.’

‘Muros? Whatever for?’

‘I haven’t raised you to be a hermit, Geran. It’s time for you to get out in the world and meet people.’

‘Who do I need to meet?’ he asked curiously.

‘I thought it might be nice if you and your wife met each other before the wedding,’ I replied. ‘That’s up to you, though. If you really like surprises, we can go back home and I’ll just send for the lucky girl.’

He blushed furiously and let the matter drop.

Muros hasn’t changed very much over the centuries. It is – and probably always will be – a dusty town permeated with the strong odor of the stockyards. For obvious reasons, there’s a lot of money in Muros. The vast Algar cattle herds have been called ‘gold on the hoof’, and the town literally seethes with cattle-buyers from all the kingdoms of the west. Geran and I took lodgings in a sedate inn on a quiet street, and I went looking for a suitable house for us to occupy on a more permanent basis. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years shopping for real estate, and I’ve developed a kind of instinctive reaction that saves time in the long run. When I see the right house, I know immediately that it’s the one I want. This time, the house was a well-built
place on a quiet back street. It didn’t come up to the standards of my town house in Vo Wacune nor my country house on Lake Erat, but I didn’t really want it to. Geran and I would be posing as members of the minor nobility, and the house was suitable for a baroness who was well off, but not exactly rolling in money. It fit our fictional status quite well.

The house was owned by a wiry little Drasnian name Khalon, and he and I haggled a bit before we concluded the transaction. The poor fellow got himself soundly beaten when I reverted to the Drasnian Secret Language to conduct our negotiations. He was ashamed to admit that he was out of practice, so he accepted a ridiculously low offer without actually translating my gesture into a real number. Then his pride prevented him from confessing that he’d misunderstood. In short, I neatly skinned him and hung his hide on a fence.

‘I think I’ve been had,’ Khalon muttered after we’d sealed the transaction with a handshake.

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘you have. Why didn’t you ask for clarification?’

‘I’d have sooner died. You won’t noise this about, will you?’

‘Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. Now, might I ask a favor of you?’

‘You want to swindle me out of my furniture, too?’

‘No. I’ll furnish my house in my own way. I need an introduction to a man named Hattan.’

The Algar cattle-buyer?’

That’s him. Do you know him?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s well-known – and hated – here in Muros.’

‘Hated?’

‘The Tolnedrans absolutely despise him. He knows all the clan chiefs of Algaria by their first names, so he always gets the first pick out of the Algar herds. He skims the cream off the top of every herd that comes over the mountains. Are you thinking of going into the cattle business, Baroness?’

‘No, Khalon, not really. It has to do with something else.’

‘I’ll be busy packing things – and selling off my furniture
– for a few days. Then I’ll take you on around to Hattan’s place of business and introduce you.’

‘Are you going back to Boktor, Khalan?’

‘No, Baroness. I don’t like Drasnian winters. I’m getting tired of cows. so I’m moving to Camaar. I’ve heard that there’s profit to be made in the spice-trade, and spices smell much nicer than cows.’

About a week later, Khalon introduced me to Hattan. At my request, he presented me to the tall, lean man dressed in horse-hide as Baroness Pelera. I’ve used assorted pseudonyms over the years, since my real name’s probably engraved on the mind of every Murgo who comes west. After a goodly number of cooperative mothers had named their daughters after the legendary ‘Polgara the Sorceress’, however, that cumbersome subterfuge became unnecessary, and the simplified ‘Pol’ was usually enough to conceal my identity.

Despite the fact that he’d lived in Sendaria for years, Hattan still wore horse-hide clothing and shaved his head except for the single flowing scalp-lock hanging down his back. His success as a cattle-buyer rested on his Algar heritage, so he made a point of dressing appropriately.

Hattan and I took to each other immediately. I’ve always liked Algars, since I grew up in their backyard. Hattan didn’t talk a lot and then only in a very quiet voice. When you spend most of your life with cows, you learn not to startle them with loud noises – unless you enjoy rounding them up again.

Khalon had grossly understated the feelings other cattle-buyers in Muros had for Hattan. Hatred only began to describe it. His intimate contacts with the Algarian clan chiefs gave him an enormous advantage over the Tolnedrans in particular. Algars almost automatically dislike Tolnedrans anyway, so the Algarian clan chiefs made a habit of culling through their herds and reserving the finest cows for Hattan before they ever reached Muros. The sight of all that prime beef that wasn’t available to them drove the Tolnedrans absolutely wild.

In time, Hattan invited Geran and me to meet his family. His wife, Layna, was a plump, giddy-seeming Sendarian
lady who was far more shrewd than she appeared on the surface. Geran was polite to her, but most of his attention was locked on to Eldara, a tall, raven-haired beauty of his own age. Eldara seemed just as taken with him, and the two of them sat looking at each other without saying a word in much the same way as Beldaran and Riva had. I caught a very strong odor of ‘tampering’ in the wind. Destiny – or prophecy, call it what you will – was obviously taking a hand in this matter.

They seem to be getting along fairly well,’ Hattan noted after Geran and Eldara had silently gazed into each other’s faces for an hour or so.

‘But they aren’t saying anything,’ Layna protested.

‘Oh, yes they are, Layna,’ Hattan said to his wife. ‘You just aren’t listening. I suppose we’d better start making arrangements.’

‘Arrangements for what?’ Layna demanded.

‘For the wedding, dear,’ I told her.

‘What wedding?’

That one,’ her husband said, pointing at the silent young couple.

They’re only sixteen, Hattan. They’re too young to get married.’

‘Not really,’ her husband disagreed. ‘Believe me, Layna, I’ve seen this sort of thing in the past. Let’s run them through the marriage ceremony
before
they start getting creative. This
is
Sendaria, my love, and the proprieties
are
sort of important here. Just because you and I got an early start doesn’t need to set a precedent for the children, does it?’

She blushed furiously.

‘Yes, Baroness?’ Hattan said to me with one raised eyebrow.

‘Nothing,’ I replied.

We postponed the wedding for a month or so for the sake for appearances, and Hattan, Layna, and I concentrated very hard on making sure that the children were never left alone together. As I recall, I caught Geran climbing out his bedroom window in the middle of the night five or six times during that interminable month. Hattan
took a more direct approach. He simply installed iron bars on Eldara’s window.

It was about noon on an overcast day when Hattan stopped by while Layna was keeping watch over our youthful enthusiasts. ‘I think we need to talk,’ he said.

‘Of course. Was it about the dowry?’

‘Did you want a herd of cows?’

‘Hardly.’

“Then we can skip over that. Pelera’s not your real name, is it, my Lady? You’re actually Belgarath’s daughter, Polgara, aren’t you?’

I stared at him, stunned. ‘How did you find that out, Hattan?’

‘I’ve got eyes, Lady Polgara, and I use them. I’m an Alorn, so I know all the stories. They describe you very precisely. They don’t really do you justice, though. You’re probably the most beautiful woman in the world, but that’s beside the point. Geran’s not really your nephew, is he?’

‘Sort of,’ I replied. ‘The relationship’s more complicated, but we simplify it for the sake of convenience.’

‘All right,’ the lean Algar said, ‘then I know who he is, too. Don’t worry, Lady Polgara, I know how to keep things to myself. We’re going to have to take some precautions, aren’t we?’

‘I can handle it, Hattan.’

‘I’m sure you can, but I’d like to lend a hand anyway. Muros might not be the best place in Sendaria for the children to live, you know. There are too many foreigners here. Sulturn or Medalia would probably be safer.’ He squinted at me. ‘I think you’re going to have to move around a lot, you know. If the stories I’ve heard about you are true, you aren’t going to age the way other people do, so you probably shouldn’t stay in one place for more than ten years, and I’d stay clear of the nobility, if I were you. People notice baronesses and other high-born ladies, and you don’t want to be noticed.’

‘You’ve thought your way completely through this, haven’t you, Hattan?’

‘My daughter’s involved too, so I’ve brooded about it a bit. Would a suggestion offend you?’

‘Not at all.’

‘When you get on out into the future, you might think about apprenticing these nephews you’re looking after to various craftsmen. A carpenter doesn’t have to explain why he moves from town to town. Craftsmen move around, and nobody’s really curious about why – as long as the craftsman’s good at what he does. Every town’s got a carpenter or two, a couple of brick-masons, an apothecary shop, and so on. A tradesman’s a fixture, and he’s invisible to strangers.’

‘Hattan, you’re a treasure!’

‘I wouldn’t go
that
far, Lady Polgara.’