“Ce’Nedra! What if someone comes along?”
She laughed a silvery laugh. “What if they do? I’m not going to soak my clothes just for the sake of propriety. Don’t be such a prude, Garion.”
“It’s not that. It’s- ”
“It’s what?”
“Never mind.”
She ran on light feet into the pool, squealing delightedly as the icy water splashed up around her. With a long clean dive, she disappeared beneath the surface of the pool, swam to the far side, where a large, mossy log angled down into the crystal-clear water, and surfaced with streaming hair and an impish grin. “Well?” she said to him.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you coming in?”
“Of course I’m not.”
“Is the mighty Overlord of the West afraid of cold water?”
“The mighty Overlord of the West has better sense than to catch cold for the sake of a little splashing around.”
“Garion, you’re getting positively stodgy. Take off your crown and relax.”
“I’m not wearing my crown.”
“Take off something else, then.”
“Ce’Nedra!”
She laughed another silvery peal of laughter and began kicking her bare feet, sending up showers of sparkling water drops that gleamed like jewels in the midmorning sunlight. Then she lay back and her hair spread like a deep copper fan upon the surface of the pool. The garland of flowers she had woven for herself earlier had come apart as a result of her swimming, and the individual blossoms floated on the water, bobbing in the ripples.
Garion sat on a mossy hummock with his back resting comfortably against a tree trunk. The sun was warm, and the smell of trees and grass and wildflowers filled his nostrils. A breeze carrying the salt tang of the sea sighed among the green limbs of the tall fir trees surrounding the little glade, and golden sunlight fell in patches on the floor of the forest.
An errant butterfly, its patterned wings a blaze of iridescent blue and gold, flitted out from among the tall tree trunks into the sunlight. Drawn by color or scent or some other, more mysterious urge, it wavered through the lucid air to the pool and the flowers bobbing there. Curiously it moved from flower to floating flower, touching each of them lightly with its wings. With a breathless expression Ce’Nedra slowly sank her head into the water until only her upturned face was above the surface. The butterfly continued its curious investigation, coming closer and closer to the waiting queen. And then it hovered over her face, its soft wings brushing her lips ecstatically.
“Oh, fine.” Garion laughed. “Now my wife is consorting with butterflies.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes in order to get a kiss,” she replied, giving him an arch look.
“If it’s kisses you want, I’ll take care of that for you,” he said.
“That’s an interesting thought. I think I’d like one right now. My other lover seems to have lost interest.” She pointed at the butterfly, which had settled with quivering wings on a bush near the foot of the pool. “Come and kiss me, Garion.”
“You’re right in the middle of the deepest part of the pool,” he pointed out.
“So?”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider coming out.”
“You offered kisses, Garion. You didn’t make any conditions.”
Garion sighed, stood up, and began to remove his clothing. “We’re both going to regret this,” he predicted. “A cold in the summertime lasts for months.”
“You’re not going to catch cold, Garion. Come along now.”
He groaned and then waded manfully into the icy water. “You’re a cruel woman, Ce’Nedra,” he accused, wincing at the shocking chill.
“Don’t be such a baby. Come over here.”
Gritting his teeth, he plowed through the water toward her, stubbing his toe on a large rock in the process. When he reached her, she slid her cold, wet little arms around his neck and glued her lips to his. Her kiss was lingering and it pulled him slightly off balance. He felt her lips tighten slightly as she grinned impishly, even in the midst of the kiss, and then without any warning, she lifted her legs, and her weight pulled him under.
He came up sputtering and swearing.
“Wasn’t that fun?” she giggled.
“Not really”‘ he grumbled. “Drowning isn’t one of my favorite sports.” She ignored that. “Now that you’re all wet, you might as well swim with me.”
They swam together for about a quarter of an hour and then emerged from the pool, shivering and with their lips turning blue.
“Make a fire, Garion,” Ce’Nedra said through chattering teeth.
“I didn’t bring any tinder,” he said “or a flint.”
“Do it the other way, then.”
“What other way?” he asked blankly.
“You know-” She made a sort of mysterious gesture.
“Oh. I forgot about that.”
“Hurry, Garion. I’m freezing.”
He gathered some twigs and fallen branches, cleared a space in the moss, and concentrated his will on the pile of wood. At first, a small tendril of smoke arose, then a tongue of bright orange flame. Within a few minutes, a goodly little fire was crackling just beside the moss-covered hummock upon which the shivering Ce’Nedra was huddled.
“Oh, that’s much better,” she said, stretching her hands out to the fire. “You’re a useful person to have around, my Lord.”
“Thank you, my Lady. Would my Lady like to consider putting on some clothes?”
“Not until she’s dry, she wouldn’t. Ihate pulling on dry clothes over wet skin.”
“Let’s hope nobody comes along, then. We’re not really dressed for company, you know.”
“You’reso conventional, Garion.”
“I suppose so,” he admitted.
“Why don’t you come over here beside me?” she invited. “It’s much warmer here.”
He couldn’t really think of any reason why he shouldn’t, so he joined her on the warm moss.
“See,” she said, putting her arms about his neck. “Isn’t this much nicer?” She kissed him -a serious kind of kiss that made his breath catch in his throat and his heart pound. When she finally released her grip about his neck, he looked around the glade nervously. A fluttering movement near the foot of the pool caught his eye. He coughed, looking slightly embarrassed.
“What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“I think that butterfly is watching,” he said with a slight flush.
“That’s all right.” she smiled, sliding her arms about his neck and kissing him again.
The world seemed unusually quiet as spring gently slipped into summer that year. The secession of the Vordues crumbled under the onslaughts of the armored Mimbrate “brigands”, and the Vordue family finally capitulated, pleading with an almost genuine humility to be readmitted to the Empire. While they were not fond of Varana’s tax collectors, they all ran out into the streets to greet his legions as they returned.
The news from Cthol Murgos was sketchy at best, but it appeared that things in the far south remained at an impasse, with Kal Zakath’s Malloreans holding the plains and Urgit’s Murgos firmly entrenched in the mountains.
Periodic reports forwarded to Garion by Drasnian Intelligence seemed to indicate that the re-emergent Bear-cult was doing little more than milling around out in the countryside.
Garion enjoyed this respite from crisis and, since there was no really pressing business, he took to sleeping late, sometimes lying in bed in a kind of luxurious doze until two or three hours past sunrise.
On one such morning about midsummer, he was having an absolutely splendid dream. He and Ce’Nedra were leaping from the loft in the barn at Faldor’s farm into the soft hay piled below. He was awakened rather rudely as his wife bolted from the bed and ran into an adjoining chamber where she was violently and noisily sick.
“Ce’Nedra!” he exclaimed, jumping out of bed to follow her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m throwing up,” she replied, raising her pale face from the basin she was holding on her knees.
“Are you sick?”
“No,” she drawled sarcastically. “I’m doing it for fun.”
“I’ll get one of the physicians,” he said, grabbing, up a robe.
“Never mind.”
“But you’re sick.”
“Of course I am, but I don’t need a physician.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Ce’Nedra. If you’re sick, you need a doctor.”
“I’m supposed to be sick,” she told him.
“What? ”
“Don’t you know anything, Garion? I’ll probably get sick every morning for the next several months.”
“I don’t understand you at all, Ce’Nedra.”
“You’re impossibly dense. People in my conditionalways get sick in the morning.”
“Condition? What condition?”
She rolled her eyes upward almost in despair. “Garion,” she said with exaggerated patience, “do you remember that little problem we had last fall? The problem that made us send for Lady Polgara?”
“Well -yes.”
“I’mso glad. Well, we don’t have that problem any more.”
He stared at her, slowly comprehending. “You mean- ?”
“Yes, dear,” she said with a pale smile. “You’re going to be a father. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll throw up again.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN