The issue remained in doubt until his official coronation, which took place two days after Ran Borune’s funeral. The gloating exultation among the contenders for the throne was almost audible when the general limped into the Temple of Nedra dressed in his uniform, rather than the traditional gold mantle which only the Emperor was allowed to wear. Obviously this man did not intend to take his elevation seriously. It might cost a bit to bribe him, but the way to the Imperial Palace was still open. The grins were broad as Varana, gleaming in his gold-inlaid breastplate, approached the altar.
The pudgy High Priest bent forward for a moment of whispered consultation. Varana replied, and the ecclesiast’s face suddenly went deathly pale. Trembling violently, he opened the gold and crystal cask on the altar and removed the jewel-encrusted Imperial Crown. Varana’s short-cropped hair was anointed with the traditional ungent, and the High Priest raised the crown with shaking hands. “I crown thee,” he declared in a voice almost squeaky with fright. ” -I crown thee Emperor Ran Borune XXIV, Lord of all Tolnedra.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. Then the temple was filled with howls of anguished protest as the Tolnedran nobility grasped the fact that by the choice of his imperial name, Varana was clearly announcing that he intended to keep the crown for himself. Those howls were cut off sharply as the Tolnedran legionnaires, who had quietly filed into place along the colonnade surrounding the main temple floor, drew their swords with a huge, steely rasp. The gleaming swords raised in salute.
“Hail Ran Borune!” the legions thundered. “Hail Emperor of Tolnedra!” And that was that.
That evening as Garion, Ce’Nedra, and the newly crowned Emperor sat together in a crimson-draped private chamber filled with the golden glow of dozens of candles, Varana exclaimed. “Surprise is as important in politics as it is in military tactics, Belgarion. If your opponent doesn’t know what you’re going to do, there’s no way he can prepare countermeasures.” The general now openly wore the gold mantle of the Emperor.
“That makes sense,” Garion replied, sipping at a goblet of Tolnedran wine. “Wearing your breastplate instead of the Imperial Mantle kept them guessing right up until the last minute.”
“That was for a much more practical reason.” Varana laughed. “Many of those young nobles have had military training, and we teach our legionnaires how to throw daggers. Since my back was going to be toward them, I wanted a good, solid layer of steel covering the area between my shoulder blades.”
“Tolnedran politics are very nervous, aren’t they?”
Varana nodded his agreement. “Fun, though,” he added.
“You have a peculiar notion of fun. I’ve had a few daggers thrown at me and I didn’t find it all that amusing.”
“We Anadiles have always had a peculiar sense of humor.”
“Borune, uncle,” Ce’Nedra corrected primly.
“What was that, dear?”
“You’re a Borune now, not an Anadile -and you should start acting like one.”
“Bad-tempered, you mean? That’s not really in my nature.”
“Ce’Nedra could give you lessons, if you like,” Garion offered, grinning fondly at his wife.
“What?”
Ce’Nedra exclaimed indignantly, her voice going up an octave or so.
“I suppose she could at that,” Varana agreed blandly. “She’s always been very good at it.”
Ce’Nedra sighed mournfully, eyeing the pair of grinning monarchs. Then her expression became artfully tragic. “What’s a poor little girl to do?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Here I am, maltreated and abused by both my husband and my brother.”
Varana blinked. “You know, I hadn’t even thought of that. Youare my sister now, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps you aren’t quite as clever as I thought, brother dear,” she purred at him. “Iknow that Garion’s not quite bright, but I thought better of you.”
Garion and Varana exchanged rueful glances.
“Would you gentlemen like to play some more?” Ce’Nedra asked them, her eyes twinkling and a smug smile hovering about her lips.
There was a light tap on the door.
“Yes?” Varana said.
“Lord Morin to see you, your Majesty”‘ the guard outside the door announced.
“Send him in, please.”
The Imperial Chamberlain entered quietly. His face was marked by the sorrow he felt at the passing of the man he had served so long and faithfully, but he still performed his duties with the quiet efficiency that had always been his outstanding characteristic.
“Yes, Morin?” Varana said.
“There’s someone waiting outside, your Majesty. She’s rather notorious, so I thought I should speak to you privately before I presented her to you.”
“Notorious?”
“It’s the courtesan Bethra, your Majesty.” Morin said with a faintly embarrassed look at Ce’Nedra. “She’s been -ah- shall we say, useful to the crown in the past. She has access to a great deal of information as a result of her professional activities and she was a longtime friend of Ran Borune’s. From time to time she kept him advised of the activities of certain unfriendly nobles. He made arrangements for there to be a way by which she could enter the palace unnoticed so that they could -ah- talk, among other things.”
“Why, that sly old fox.”
“I have never known her information to be inaccurate, your Majesty.” Morin continued. “She says she has something very important to tell you.”
“You’d better bring her in, then, Morin,” Varana said, “With you permission, of course, dear sister,” he added to Ce’Nedra.
“Certainly,” Ce’Nedra agreed, her eyes afire with curiosity.
When Morin brought the woman in, she was wearing a light, hooded cloak, but when, with one smooth, round arm, she reached up and pushed the hood back, Garion started slightly. He knew her. He recalled that when he and Aunt Pol and the others had been passing through Tol Honeth during their pursuit of Zedar the Apostate and the stolen Orb, this same woman had accosted Silk for a bantering exchange.
As she unfastened the neck of her cloak and let it slide almost sensuously from her creamy shoulders, he saw that she had not changed in the nearly ten years since he had last seen her. Her lustrous, blue-black hair was untouched by any hint of gray. Her startlingly beautiful face was still as smooth as a girl’s, and her heavy-lidded eyes were still filled with a sultry wickedness. Her gown was of palest lavender and cut in such a way as to enhance rather than conceal the lush, almost overripe body it enclosed. It was the kind of body that was a direct challenge to every man she met. Garion stared openly at her until he caught Ce’Nedra’s green eyes, agate-hard, boring into him, and he quickly looked away.
“Your Majesty,” Bethra said in a throaty contralto as she curtsied gracefully to the new Emperor, “I would have waited a time before introducing myself, but I’ve heard a few things I thought you should know immediately.”
“I appreciate your friendship, Lady Bethra,” Varana replied with exquisite courtesy.
She laughed a warm, wicked laugh. “I’m not a lady, your Majesty,” she corrected him. “Most definitelynot a lady.” She made a small curtsy to Ce’Nedra. “Princess,” she murmured.
“Madame,” Ce’Nedra responded with a faint chill in her voice and a very slight inclination of her head.
“Ah,” Bethra said almost sadly. Then she turned back to Varana. “Late this afternoon I was entertaining Count Ergon and the Baron Kelbor at my establishment.”
“A pair of powerful Honethite nobles,” Varana explained to Garion.
“The gentlemen from the house of Honeth are less than pleased with your Majesty’s choice of an official name,” Bethra continued. “They spoke hastily and in some heat, but I think that you might want to take what they said seriously. Ergon is an unmitigated ass, all bluster and pomposity, but Baron Kelbor is not the sort to be taken lightly. At any rate, they concluded that, with the legions all around the palace, it would be unlikely that an assassin could reach you; but then Kelbor said, ‘If you want to kill a snake, you cut off its tail -just behind the head. We can’t reach Varana, but wecan reach his son. Without an heir, Varana’s line dies with him.”
“My son?” Varana said sharply.
“His life is in danger, your Majesty. I thought you should know.”
“Thank you, Bethra,” Varana replied gravely. Then he turned to Morin. “Send a detachment of the third legion to my son’s house,” he said. “No one is to go in or out until I’ve had time to make other arrangements.”
“At once, your Majesty.”
“I would also like to speak with the two gentlemen from the House of Honeth. Send some troops to invite them to the palace. Have them wait in that little room adjoining the torture chamber down in the dungeons until I have the time to discuss this with them.”
“You wouldn’t,” Ce’Nedra gasped.
“Probably not,” Varana admitted, “but they don’t have to know that, do they? Let’s give them a nervous hour or two.”