Polgara the Sorceress (9 page)

‘Mother says that passes after a while. I guess it’s supposed to be fun, so enjoy it while you can.’

She blushed.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go break a few hearts.’

There was a large hall near the center of the Citadel that seemed to be where the members of Riva’s court gathered for fun and games. The throne room was reserved for more formal occasions, and unlike the rowdy throne room in Val Alorn where the Chereks mixed business and pleasure, Riva’s Citadel had separate places for separate activities. The door to the hall was open, and I peeked around the edge of that door to assess my competition.

Rivan girls, like all Alorns, tend to be blonde, and I saw an immediate advantage there. My dark hair would make me stand out in the middle of what appeared to be a wheat field. The young people in that large room were doing young-people things, flirting, showing off, and the like. I waited, biding my time until one of those lulls in the general babble hushed the room. Somehow I instinctively knew that the hush would eventually come.
That
was when I’d make my appearance. Entrances are
very
important in these circumstances.

I finally got a little tired of waiting. ‘
Make them be still, mother
,’ I pleaded with the presence that had been in my mind since before I was born.

‘
Oh, dear
,’ mother sighed.

Then a hush fell over the brightly dressed throng.

I’d considered the notion of some kind of fanfare, but that might have been just a trifle ostentatious. Instead, I
simply stepped into the precise center of the doorway and stopped, waiting for them all to notice me. My blue gown was rather nice, so I was sure I’d attract attention.

I think mother – or possibly Aldur – had fallen in with my scheme. There was a fairly large window high in the wall opposite the door and after I’d stood in the doorway for a moment, the sun broke through the clouds which almost perpetually veiled the Isle, and its light came through the window to fall full upon me.

That was even better than a fanfare. I stood regally in the middle of that sun-flooded doorway, letting all the eyes in the room feast themselves on me.

Dear Gods, that was enjoyable!

All right, it was vain and a little silly. So what? I was young.

There was a small group of musicians at the far end of the room – I’d hardly call them an orchestra – and they struck up a tune as I regally entered the hall. As I’d rather hoped they would, most of the young men began to move in my general direction, each of them mentally refining some opening remark that he hoped would get my attention. You have no idea how strained and inane some of those remarks were. After about the fourth time someone compared my eyes to a spring sky, I began to realize that unrestrained creativity was not exactly rampant among adolescents. It somehow seemed that I was adrift in a sea of platitudes. I got compared to summer days, starry nights, and dark, snow-capped peaks – a rather obvious reference to the white streak in my hair. They swarmed around me like a flock of sparrows, elbowing each other out of the way. The Rivan girls began to look a little sulky about the whole business.

A young blond fellow in a green doublet – quite handsome, actually – pushed his way to the forefront of my suitors and bowed rather floridly. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Lady Polgara, I presume?’
That
was a novel approach. He gave me a rather sly smile. ‘Tedious, isn’t it? All this empty conversation, I mean. How much time can one
really
spend talking about the weather?’

That earned him a few dark looks as a number of my suitors hastily revised their opening remarks.

‘I’m certain you and I can find something more pleasant to talk about,’ he continued smoothly, ‘politics, theology, or current fashion, if you’d like.’ He actually seemed to have a mind.

‘We might want to think about that a bit,’ I countered. ‘What’s your name?’

He slapped his forehead in feigned chagrin. ‘How
stupid
of me,’ he said. ‘How could I possibly have been so absentminded?’ He sighed theatrically. ‘It’s a failing of mine, I’m afraid. Sometimes I think I need a keeper.’ He gave me a sly look. ‘Would
you
care to volunteer for the post?’ he offered.

‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ I reminded him, ignoring his offer.

‘You really shouldn’t let me get sidetracked that way, Lady Polgara,’ he chided gently. ‘Before I forget again, I’m Kamion, an incipient baron – just as soon as my childless uncle dies. Where were we?’

I’ll confess that I liked him. His approach had some genuine originality, and his little-boy manner was appealing. I realized at that point that this whole business might just be a bit more challenging than I’d expected. Not
all
of my suitors were freshly weaned puppies.
Some
of them even had brains. That was rather refreshing. After all, if you’ve seen one furiously wagging tail, you’ve seen them all. I actually experienced a slight twinge of disappointment when the swarming suitors swept Kamion away.

The platitudes came thick and fast after that, but nobody chose to talk about the weather for some reason.

The Rivan girls grew sulkier and sulkier, and just to tweak them a little more I dispensed a number of dazzlingly regal smiles. My suitors found those smiles absolutely enchanting; the girls didn’t.

The afternoon progressed in a
very
satisfactory way, and then the musicians – lutanists for the most part – struck up a new tune, and a thin, weedy young man dressed all in black and wearing a studiously melancholy expression pushed his way forward. ‘Would you care to dance, Lady
Polgara?’ he asked me in a broken-hearted tone. He bowed. ‘Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Merot the poet, and I might be able to compose a sonnet for you while we dance.’

‘I’m very sorry, my lord Merot,’ I replied, ‘but I’ve lived in isolation, so I don’t really know how to dance.’ It wasn’t true, of course. Beldaran and I had been inventing dances since we were children, but I was fairly certain that the rhythm of a meadowlark’s song might be just a little difficult for this self-proclaimed poet to comprehend.

Merot was obviously a poseur, but so were most of the others. He seemed to think that his carefully manicured short black beard and tragic expression made him irresistible to all the girls.
I
didn’t have too much trouble resisting him, though. Maybe it was his rancid breath that made me keep my distance.

‘Ah,’ he responded to my confession of terpsichorean ineptitude, ‘what a pity.’ Then his gloomy eyes brightened. ‘I could give you private lessons, if you’d like.’

‘We might discuss that sometime,’ I parried, still staying back from that foul breath.

‘Might I offer you a poem then?’ he suggested.

That would be nice.’

What a mistake
that
was! Merot assumed an oratorical stance and began to recite in a tediously slow manner with that gloomy voice of his. He spoke as if the fate of the universe hung on his every word. I didn’t notice the sun darken, though, or feel any earthquakes.

He went on and on and
on,
and his
pose
as a poet was much, much better than his actual verse. Of course I wasn’t really acquainted with poetry at that stage of my life, but it seemed to me that lingering lovingly over every single syllable is not really the best way to keep the attention of your audience. At first I found him tedious. Tedious descended rather rapidly into boring, and boring disintegrated into near despair. I rather theatrically rolled my eyes upward. Several of my suitors caught the hint immediately and moved in to rescue me.

Merot was still standing in the same place reciting as the crowd flowed away from him. He might have loved me, but he obviously loved himself more.

The other ladies in the room were growing increasingly discontented, I noticed. Despite their fairly obvious expressions of invitation, the dance floor remained deserted. My suitors evidently didn’t want to be distracted. Quite a few of the ladies pled headaches and quietly left the room. It might have been my imagination, but after they left I seemed to hear a gnawing sound – a sound that was remarkably like the sound of someone eating her own liver. There was a certain musical quality about that to my ears.

Then, as evening began to descend upon the Isle of the Winds, Taygon came up to join me. Taygon did
not
have to elbow his way through the crowd. Everybody got out of his way. He was big. He was burly. He was garbed in chain mail. He had a huge blond beard. He wore a sword. ‘Lady Polgara!’ he said in a booming voice, ‘I’ve been looking for you!’

That was ominous. ‘I’m Taygon the Warrior. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. My deeds are renowned throughout the length and breadth of Aloria.’

‘I’m terribly sorry, Lord Taygon,’ I apologized in mock confusion. ‘I grew up in almost total isolation, so I don’t really know what’s going on in the world – besides, I’m just a silly girl.’

‘I’ll kill any man who says so!’ He glared at the others threateningly.

How on earth was I going to deal with this barbarian? Then I made a mistake – one of several that day. ‘Ah –’ I floundered, ‘since I’ve been so out of touch, I’d be enthralled to hear of some of your exploits.’

Please be a little more forgiving. I
was
an absolute novice that day, after all.

‘My pleasure, Lady Polgara.’ It might have been
his
pleasure, but it certainly wasn’t
mine.
Did he
have
to be so graphic? As he spoke, I suddenly found myself awash in a sea of blood and looking out at an entire mountain range of loose brains. Brightly colored entrails snarled around my feet, and disconnected extremities floated by – twitching.

It was only by a supreme act of will that I was able to
keep from throwing up all over the front of his chain-mail shirt.

Then dear, dear Kamion rescued me. ‘Excuse me, Sir Taygon, but Lady Polgara’s sister, our future queen, requires her presence. I know that we’ll all be made desolate by her absence, but a royal command cannot be disobeyed. I’m certain that a warrior of your vast experience can understand the importance of obeying orders.’

‘Oh, of course, Kamion,’ Taygon replied automatically. He bowed clumsily to me. ‘You must hurry, Lady Polgara. We mustn’t keep the Queen waiting.’

I curtsied to him, not trusting myself to answer. Then Kamion took my elbow and guided me away.

‘When you come back,’ Taygon called after me, ‘I’ll tell you about how I disemboweled an offensive Arend.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ I said rather weakly over my shoulder.

‘Do you
really
want to hear about it, my Lady?’ Kamion murmured to me.

‘Frankly, my dear Kamion, I’d sooner take poison’

He laughed. ‘I rather thought you might feel that way about it. Your face was definitely taking on a slight greenish cast there toward the end.’

Oh, Kamion was smooth. I began to admire him almost in spite of myself.

‘Well?’ my sister asked when I rejoined her, ‘how was it?’

‘Just wonderful!’ I replied exultantly. They were all smitten with me. I was the absolute center of attention.’

‘You’ve got a cruel streak in you, Polgara.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’ve been cooped up in here all afternoon, and you’ve come back to rub my nose in all your conquests.’

‘Would
I
do that?’ I asked her archly.

‘Of course you would. I can see you absolutely running through the halls to get back so that you could gloat’ Then she laughed. ‘I’m sorry, Pol. I couldn’t resist that.’

‘You’re above all that now, Beldaran,’ I told her. ‘You’ve already caught the man you want. I’m still fishing.’

‘I’m not sure that I’m the one who really caught him. There were a lot of other people involved in that fishing
trip, too: Aldur, father – mother, too, probably. The notion of an arranged marriage is just a little humiliating.’

‘You
do
love Riva, don’t you?’

‘Of course. It’s humiliating all the same. All right, tell me what happened. I want every single detail.’

I described my afternoon, and my sister and I spent a great deal of our time laughing. Even as I had, Beldaran particularly enjoyed the reaction of the Rivan girls.

That afternoon was my last unsupervised excursion into the untamed jungle of the adolescent mating ritual. From then on, father sat scowling in a spot where everybody could see him. It wasn’t really necessary, of course, but there was no way that father could know that mother was already keeping an eye on me. His presence
did
set certain limits on the enthusiasm of my suitors, and I was of two minds about that. None of my suitors were likely to go
too
far with him sitting there, but I was fairly sure that I could take care of myself, and father’s insistence on being present robbed me of the chance to find out if I could.

For some reason Kamion made father particularly nervous, and I couldn’t understand exactly why. Kamion had exquisite manners, and he never once did anything at all offensive. Why did my aged sire dislike him so much?

Got you that time, didn’t I, Old Wolf?

Then King Cherek and his sons, Dras Bull-neck and Algar Fleet-foot, arrived for the wedding, and things began to get just a bit more serious. Despite the way Beldaran and Riva felt about each other, my sister had been right. Theirs was an arranged marriage. The possibility that my father might
also
decide to arrange one for me – just to protect me from all those fawning suitors – raised its ugly head. There was in those days – probably even still existing – the idea that women are intellectually inferior to men. Men did – and many still do – automatically assume that women are empty-headed ninnies who’ll fall prey to the first glib young man who comes along with certain ideas in his mind. The result, of course, is the virtual imprisonment of almost all women of a certain rank. What my father and all those
other primitives can’t seem to realize is that we’ll resent that imprisonment and go to almost any lengths to circumvent it. That might help to explain why so many girls become involved with inappropriate young men. In most cases the character of the young man doesn’t make a job of difference. The girl in question is driven by a desire to show them that she
can
do it, rather than by empty-headed lust.