than fairy tales, and most of them probably were. She was most
definitely not a hag, for one thing, and I’m fairly sure that she
didn’t go out of her way to lure unwary travelers into quicksand bogs,
for another. Certain events in her past had made her absolutely
indifferent to other humans.
The interior of her cottage was scrupulously neat. The ceiling was low
and heavily beamed, and the wooden floor had been scrubbed until it was
white. There was a pot hanging in her fireplace; there were
wildflowers in a vase on her table, and curtains at the window.
Vordai wore a plain brown dress, and she limped slightly. She looked
worn and tired.
“So this is the famous Belgarath,” she said, taking our wet cloaks and
hanging them on pegs near her fire.
“Disappointing, isn’t he?” Pol said.
“No,” Vordai replied, “not really. He’s about what I’d have
expected.”
She gestured toward her table.
“Seat yourselves. I think there’s enough in the pot for us all.”
“You knew that we were coming, didn’t you, Vordai?” Pol suggested.
“Naturally. I am a witch, after all.”
A fen ling came in through the open door and stood up on its short hind
legs. It made that peculiar chittering sound that fen lings all
make.
“Yes,” Vordai said to the little creature,
“I know.”
“It’s true, then,” Pol said cryptically, eyeing the fen ling
“Many unusual things are true, Polgara,” Vordai replied.
“You shouldn’t really have tampered with them, you know.”
“I didn’t hurt them, and I’ve found that tampering with humans can be
very dangerous. All in all, I much prefer the company of fen lings to
that of my fellow man.”
“They’re cleaner, if nothing else,” Pol agreed.
“That’s because they bathe more often. The rain should let up soon,
and you and your father will be able to continue your journey. In the
meantime, I’ll offer breakfast. That’s about as far as I’d care to
stretch my hospitality.”
There were a lot of things going on that I didn’t completely
understand.
Evidently Polgara’s studies had taken her into an examination of
witchcraft, an area I’d neglected, and there were things passing back
and forth between Pol and the Witch of the Fens that were
incomprehensible to me. The one thing that I did perceive, however,
was the fact that this lonely old woman had been treated very badly at
some time in the past.
All right, Garion, don’t beat it into the ground. Yes, as a matter of
fact, I did feel sorry for Vordai–almost as sorry as I had felt for
Illessa. I’m not a monster, after all. Why do you think I did what I
did when you and Silk and I passed through the fens on our way to Cthol
Mishrak? It certainly wasn’t because I couldn’t think of any
alternatives.
As Vordai had suggested it might, the sky cleared along about noon, and
Pol and I put on our now-dry cloaks and went back to our boat.
Vordai didn’t even bother to see us off.
I poled the boat around another bend in that twisting channel we had
been following, and as soon as we were out of sight of that lonely
cottage there in the middle of that vast swamp, Pol’s eyes filled with
tears. I didn’t really think it would have been appropriate for me to
ask her why. When the occasion demands it, Pol can be absolutely
ruthless, but she’s not inhuman.
We came out of the fens near Aldurford and continued on foot along the
eastern border of Sendaria until we reached the rutted track that led
to Annath. It was mid-afternoon when we crossed the frontier, and
Geran was waiting for us near the stone quarry on the outskirts of town
when we finally arrived.
“Thank the Gods!” he said fervently.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t make it back in time for the wedding!”
“What wedding?” Pol asked sharply “Mine,” Geran replied.
“I’m getting married next week.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The wedding of Geran and Ildera took place in the late spring of the
year 5348, and the entire village of Annath took the day off work to
attend. Not to be outdone, Ildera’s leather-clad clansmen also came
across the border to participate.
There’d been a certain amount of squabbling about who was going to
officiate at the ceremony. Since Ildera was an Algar, the Priest of
Belar who attended to the spiritual needs of her clan assumed that he
should be the one to conduct the ceremony, but the local Sendarian
priest had objected strenuously. Polgara had stepped in at that point
and smoothed things over–on the surface, at least–by suggesting the
simple expedient of having two ceremonies instead of one. It didn’t
matter to me one way or the other, so I kept my nose out of it.
Some frictions had arisen between Geran’s mother, Alara, and Ildera’s
mother, Olane. Ildera’s father, Grettan, was a Clan-Chief, after all,
and that’s about as close as you’re going to get to nobility in Algar
society. Geran, on the other hand, was the son of an ordinary
stonecutter, so Olane didn’t make any secret of the fact that she felt
that her daughter was marrying beneath her. That didn’t set at all
well with Alara, and Pol had been obliged to speak with her firmly to
prevent her from blurting out some things about her son’s heritage that
others didn’t need to know about. These periodic outbreaks of
animosity between mothers have caused Pol more concern over the
centuries than Chamdar himself, I think.
Country weddings are normally rather informal affairs. The bridegroom
usually takes a bath, and most of the time he’ll put on a clean shirt,
but that’s about as far as it goes. Olane’s superior attitude in this
situation, however, had moved Alara to tear the village of Annath apart
in search of finery in which to dress her son. Quite by chance she
discovered that the local cobbler had a dust-covered old purple doublet
hanging in his attic, and she’d badgered the poor man unmercifully
until he’d finally agreed to lend it to Geran. She’d washed it and
almost forcibly compelled my grandson to put it on for the happy
occasion.
It didn’t fit him very well, though, and he kept reaching up under it
trying to adjust it.
“Just leave it alone, Geran,” his father told him while the three of us
were waiting for the ceremony to begin.
“You’ll rip it.”
“I don’t see why I have to wear this silly thing anyway, father,” Geran
complained.
“I’ve got a perfectly good tunic.”
“Your mother wants you to look a bit more dressed up in front of the
Algars,” Darral told him.
“Let’s not go out of our way to disappoint her.
She’s having a little problem right now, so let’s humor her. Do it as
a favor to your poor old father, Geran. You might be eating in your
own kitchen from now on, but I still have to eat what your mother
prepares.
Just wear the doublet, boy. You can endure it for a few hours, and
it’ll make my life a lot easier.”
Geran grumbled a bit and then went back to that nervous pacing that all
bridegrooms seem to find entertaining.
Since the weather was fine and there were a lot of guests in
attendance, the wedding took place in a pleasant flower-strewn meadow
on the outskirts of Annath. When the time came, Darral and I escorted
our nervous bridegroom to the altar that’d been erected in the center
of the field and where the two priests who were to officiate stood
glowering at each other. I could see from their expressions that Pol’s
suggestion hadn’t quite ironed out all the wrinkles.
The immediate families of the bride and groom were seated on benches
just in front of the altar while the rest of the guests stood. The
Sendars were all dressed in sober, serviceable brown, and they stood on
one side. The Algars wore black horsehide and they stood on the
other.
There were some hard looks being exchanged, I noticed. The hostility
between Olane and Alara had obviously polarized the wedding guests into
two opposing camps.
Most of the residents of Annath were stone-cutters by trade, so there
weren’t any competent musicians among the Sendarian contingent; and
Algars are so unmusical that most of them couldn’t carry a tune in a
bucket. Pol had considered this and had wisely decided to forgo the
traditional bridal march. There was enough trouble in the wind
already.
Some chance remark by a budding music critic might well have set off
the fights even before the ceremony.
Ildera was escorted to the alter by her father, Grettan, whose
expression indicated that he was devoutly wishing that this day would
end. The bride, dressed all in white and with a garland of spring
flowers encircling her pale, blonde head, was radiant. Brides always
are–or had you noticed that? Brides are radiant, and bridegrooms are