dubiously.
“Our priests are just as partisan as the rest of us. The priest might
refuse to perform the ceremony.”
“Not for very long, my friend,” Mandor disagreed, “not if he values his
continued good health.”
“You’d actually hit a priest?” Wildantor asked.
“My duty to Arendia would compel it of me,” Mandor said, “though it
would, of course, rend mine heart.”
“Oh, of course. Let’s go find one, shall we? And you can explain
things to him while we’re dragging him back here.”
And so Korodullin and Mayaserana were married, and Arendia was
technically united. There was still a certain amount of bickering
between Mimbrates and Asturians, of course, but the open battles more
or less came to an end.
After the wedding, the kings of the West dispersed. We’d all been away
from home for a long time, after all. Pol and I rode north with Brand
as far as the great Arendish Fair, and then we said our goodbyes and
took the road leading toward the Ulgo border.
“Will you be taking Gelane back to Aldurford?” I asked her after we’d
gone several miles.
“No, father. I don’t think that’d be a good idea. A lot of Algar
soldiers saw the two of us at Vo Mimbre, and some of them came from
Aldurford. Someone might make the connection. I think we’d better
start fresh somewhere.”
“Where did you have in mind?”
“I think I’ll go back to Sendaria. After Vo Mimbre, there aren’t going
to be any Grolims around to worry about.”
“That’s your decision, Pol. Gelane’s your responsibility, so whatever
you decide is all right with me.”
“Oh, thank you, father!” she said with a certain amount of sarcasm.
“Oh, one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“Stay out of my hair, Old Wolf, and this time I mean it.”
“Whatever you say, Polgara.” I didn’t really mean it, of course, but I
said it anyway. It was easier than arguing with her.
PART SIX
GAR ION
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
There’s a peculiar dichotomy in the nature of almost anyone who calls
himself a historian. Such scholars all piously assure us that they’re
telling us the real truth about what really happened, but if you turn
any competent historian over and look at his damp underside, you’ll
find a storyteller, and you can believe me when I tell you that no
storyteller’s ever going to tell a story without a few
embellishments.
Add to that the fact that we’ve all got assorted political and
theological preconceptions that are going to color what we write, and
you’ll begin to realize that no history of any event is entirely
reliable–not even this one.
What I’ve just told you about the Battle of Vo Mimbre is more or less
true, but I’ll leave the business of separating truth from the fiction
up to you. It’ll sharpen your mind.
When you get right down to the bottom of the matter, the accords we
reached at Vo Mimbre were more important than the battle itself. The
war with the Angaraks was the climax of particular set of events, and
the word “climax” means “end.” The Accords of Vo Mimbre set up a new
set of events, so in a certain sense they could be called a
beginning.
The formalized summary of the accords that the Gorim read to us as our
conference came to a close was just that–a summary. The meat of the
thing lay in the specific articles, and we didn’t let the creative
Mimbrate scribes who prepared our summary anywhere near those. Over
the years I’ve seen too many absurdities enacted into law or appearing
in royal proclamations because some half-asleep scribe missed a
line–or transposed a couple of words–for me to take chances. Those
accords were very important. The articles we’d hammered out covered
such things as how the Rivan King would issue his call to arms, how the
various kingdoms were supposed to respond, and other logistical
details. I’ll concede that the presence of Brand, who’d just struck
down Kal Torak and shaken the world by that act, made slipping a few
things in much easier for me. Those things absolutely had to be
included, but trying to explain exactly why would have taken years, I
expect.
It was Polgara who dictated the specifics of the little ceremony that’s
become a ritual for the past five hundred years, and I use the word
“dictated” advisedly here, since my imperious daughter refused to hear
of any amendments or revisions. Mergon, the Tolnedran ambassador,
almost had apoplexy by the time she was finished, and I’m not entirely
certain that Ran Borune didn’t.
“This is the way it’s going to be from now on,” she declared, and
that’s not really the best way to introduce a subject at a peace
conference.
“From this day forward, each Princess of Imperial Tolnedra shall
present herself in her wedding gown in the Hall of the Rivan King on
their sixteenth birthday. She’ll wait there for three days. If the
Rivan King comes to claim her during those three days, they’ll be wed.
If he doesn’t, she’ll be free to return to Tolnedra, and her father can
choose another husband for her.”
It was at that point that Mergon began to splutter, but Pol overrode
his objections, and the Alorn kings backed her to the hilt, threatening
invasions, the burning of cities, the scattering of the Tolnedran
population, and other extravagances. I made a point of going to Tol
Honeth a year or so later to apologize to Ran Borune for her behavior.
The presence of the legions at Vo Mimbre had turned the tide of battle,
and Polgara’s ultimatum had a faint odor of ingratitude about it. I
know that she was following instructions, but her cavalier attitude
almost suggested that Tolnedra was a defeated enemy.
When the conference ended, Pol and I rode north, and it was late summer
by the time we reached the border of Ulgoland. We were met there by a
fairly large detachment of leather-clad Algars. Cho Ram had sent an
honor guard to escort us through the Ulgo Mountains. I didn’t want to
insult him by refusing, so we plodded on across those mountains with
his Algars rather than doing it the other way–which would have been
much faster, of course. There wasn’t anything pressing that needed to
be done, though, and it was the courteous thing to do.
When we came down out of the mountains of Ulgoland onto the plains of
Algaria, Pol and I separated. She went on to the Stronghold with the
Algars, and I rode on south to the Vale. I had it in my mind that some
fairly serious loafing might be in order. I’d been on the go for a
quarter century, and I felt that I owed myself a vacation.
Beldin had other ideas, though.
“What are your feelings about a little trip to Mallorea?” he asked
when I got home.
“Profoundly unenthusiastic, if you want the truth. What’s in Mallorea
that’s so important?”
“The Ashabine Oracles, I hope. I thought that you and I could go to
Ashaba and ransack Torak’s house there. He might just have left a copy
of the Oracles lying around, and those prophecies could be very useful,
don’t you think? Zedar, Urvon, and Ctuchik aren’t going to let this
slide, Belgarath. We bloodied their noses quite thoroughly at Vo
Mimbre, and they’ll almost certainly try to get back at us. If we can
get our hands on a copy of the Oracles, it might give us a few clues
about what to expect from them.”
“You can burglarize a house without any help from me, brother,” I told
him.
“I don’t feel any great yearnings to visit a deserted castle in the
Karandese Mountains.”
“You’re lazy, Belgarath.”
“Has it taken you this long to realize that?”
“Let me put it to you another way,” he said.
“I need you.”
“What for?”
“Because I can’t read Old Angarak, you ninny!”
“How do you know that the Oracles are written in Old Angarak?”
“I don’t, but it’s the language that’d come most naturally to Torak,
especially since he was probably in a sort of delirium when the voice
came to him. If the Oracles are written in Old Angarak, I wouldn’t be
able to recognize them if they were out in plain sight.”
“I could teach you how to read the language, Beldin.”
“And by then Urvon will have gotten to Ashaba first. If we’re going,
we’d better go now.”
I sighed. It looked as if I was going to have to postpone my
vacation.
“Did I just hear the sound of a change of heart?” he asked.
“Don’t push it, Beldin. I am going to sleep for a couple of days
first, though.”
“You old people do that a lot, don’t you?”
“Just go away for a while, brother. You’re keeping me up past my
bedtime.”
Actually, I slept for only about twelve hours. The possibility that