When the purple hue of evening began to creep up the eastern sky, Errand fed the horse, promised that he would come again the following day, and went back into the Citadel in search of his friends. He found them seated in a low-ceilinged dining hall. This room was smaller than the great main banquet hall and it was less formal. It was perhaps as close to being homey as any room in this bleak fortress could be.
“Did you have a pleasant afternoon?” Polgara asked him.
Errand nodded.
” And was the horse glad to see you?”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re hungry, I suppose?”
“Well-a little.” He looked around the room, noting that the Rivan Queen was not present. “Where’s Ce’Nedra?” he asked.
“She’ s a little tired,” Polgara replied. “She and I had a long talk this afternoon.”
Errand looked at her and understood. Then he looked around again. “I reallyam sort of hungry,” he told her.
She laughed a warm, fond laugh. ” All boys are the same,” she said.
“Would you really want us to be different?” Garion asked her.
“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose I would.”
The next morning, quite early, Polgara and Errand were in front of the fire in the apartment that had always been hers. Polgara sat in a high-backed chair with a fragrant cup of tea on the small table beside her. She wore a deep blue velvet dressing gown and held a large ivory comb. Errand sat on a carpet-covered footstool directly in front of her, enduring a part of the morning ritual. The washing of the face, ears, and neck did not take all that much time, but for some reason the combing of his hair always seemed to fill up the better part of a quarter hour. Errand’s personal tastes in the arrangement of his hair were fairly elemental. As long as it was out of his eyes, it was satisfactory. Polgara, however, seemed to find a great deal of entertainment in pulling a comb through his soft, pale-blond curls. Now and then at odd times of the day, he would see that peculiar softness come into her eyes and see her fingers twitching almost of their own will toward a comb and he would know that, if he did not immediately become very busy with something, he would be wordlessly seated in a chair to have his hair attended to.
There was a respectful tap on the door.
“Yes, Garion?” she replied.
“I hope I’m not too early, Aunt Pol. May I come in?”
“Of course, dear.”
Garion wore a blue doublet and hose and soft leather shoes. Errand had noticed that if he had any choice in the matter, the young King of Riva almost always wore blue.
“Good morning, dear,” Polgara said, her fingers still busy with the comb.
“Good morning, Aunt Pol,” Garion said. And then he looked at the boy who sat fidgeting slightly on the stool in front of Polgara’s chair. “Good morning, Errand,” he said gravely.
“Belgarion,” Errand said, nodding.
“Hold your head still, Errand,” Polgara said calmly. “Would you like some tea?” she asked Garion.
“No, thank you.” He drew up another chair and sat down across from her. “Where’s Durnik?” he asked.
“He’s taking a walk around the parapet,” Polgara told him. “Durnik likes to be outside when the sun comes up.”
“Yes,” Garion smiled. “I seem to remember that from Faldor’s farm. Is everything all right? With the rooms, I mean?”
“I’m always very comfortable here,” she said. “In some ways it was always was the closest thing I had to a permanent home -at least until now.” She looked around with satisfaction at the deep crimson velvet drapes and the dark leather upholstery of her chairs and sighed contentedly.
“These have been your rooms for a long time, haven’t they?”
“Yes. Beldaran set them aside for me after she and Iron-grip were married.”
“What was he like?”
“Iron-grip? Very tall -almost as tall as his father -and immensely strong.” She turned her attention back to Errand’s hair.
“Was he as tall as Barak?”
“Taller, but not quite so thick-bodied. King Cherek himself was seven feet tall, and all of his sons were very big men. Dras Bull-neck was like a tree trunk. He blotted out the sky. Iron-grip was leaner and he had a fierce black beard and piercing blue eyes. By the time he and Beldaran were married, there were touches of gray in his hair and beard; but even so, there was a kind of innocence about him that we could all sense. It was very much like the innocence we all feel in Errand here.”
“You seem to remember him very well. For me, he’s always been just somebody in a legend. Everybody knows about the things he did, but we don’t know anything about him as a real man.”
“I’d remember him a bit more acutely, Garion. After all, therehad been the possibility that I might have married him.”
“Iron-grip?”
” Aldur told father to send one of his daughters to the Rivan King to be his wife. Father had to choose between Beldaran and me. I think the old wolf made the right choice, but I still looked at Iron-grip in a rather special way.” She sighed and then smiled a bit ruefully. “I don’t think I’d have made him a good wife,” she said. “My sister Beldaran was sweet and gentle and very beautiful. I was neither gentle nor very attractive.”
“But you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, Aunt Pol,” Garion objected quickly.
“It’s nice of you to say that, Garion, but when I was sixteen, I wasn’t what most people would call pretty. I was tall and gangly. My knees were always skinned, and my face was usually dirty. Your grandfather was never very conscientious about looking after the appearance of his daughters.
Sometimes whole weeks would go by without a comb ever touching my hair. I didn’t like my hair very much, anyway. Beldaran’s was soft and golden, but mine was like a horse’s mane, and there was this ugly white streak.” She absently touched the white lock at her left brow with the comb.
“What caused that?” he asked curiously.
“‘Your grandfather touched me there with his hand the first time he saw me -when I was just a baby. The lock turned white instantly. We’re all marked in one way or another, you know. You have the mark on your palm; I have this white lock; your grandfather has a mark just over his heart. It’s in different places on each of us, but it means the same thing.”
“What does it mean?”
“It has to do with what we are, dear.” She turned Errand around and looked at him, her lips pursed. Then she gently touched the curls just over his ears. “Anyway, as I was saying, I was wild and willful and not at all pretty when I was young. The Vale of Aldur isn’t really a very good place for a girl to grow up, and a group of crotchety old sorcerers is not really a very good substitute for a mother. They tend to forget that you’re around. You remember that huge, ancient tree in the middle of the Vale?”
He nodded.
“I climbed up into that tree once and stayed there for two weeks before anyone noticed that I hadn’t been underfoot lately. That sort of thing can make a girl feel neglected and unloved.”
“How did you finally find out -that you’re really beautiful, I mean?”
She smiled. “That’s another story, dear.” She looked at him rather directly. “Do you suppose we can stop tiptoeing around the subject now?”
“What?”
“That business in your letter about you and Ce’Nedra.”
“Oh, that. I probably shouldn’t have bothered you with it, Aunt Pol. It’s my problem, after all.” He looked away uncomfortably .
“Garion,” she said firmly, “in our particular family there’s no such thing as a private problem. I thought you knew that by now. Exactly whatis the difficulty with Ce’Nedra?”
“It’s just not working, Aunt Pol,” he said disconsolately. “There are things that I absolutelyhave to see to by myself, and she wants me to spend every waking minute with her -well, at least sheused to. Now we go for days without seeing each other at all. We don’t sleep in the same bed any more, and-” He looked suddenly at Errand and coughed uncomfortably .
“There,” Polgara said to Errand as if nothing had happened. “I guess you’re presentable now. Why don’t you put on that brown wool cape and go find Durnik? Then the two of you can go down to the stables and visit the horse.”
“All right, Polgara,” Errand agreed, slipping down off the stool and going to fetch the cape.
“He’s a very good little boy, isn’t he?” Garion said to Polgara.
“Most of the time,” she replied. “If we can keep him out of the river behind my mother’s house. For some reason, he seems to feel incomplete if he can’t fall into the water once or twice a month.”