with me on most things, and I’m broad-minded enough to concede that
they might possibly not be complete idiots, but I much prefer the
company of people who agree with me.
You might want to think about that.
I enjoyed her company, and I found myself thinking up excuses not to
leave. She was a remarkably handsome woman, and there was a fragrance
about her that made my senses reel. She told me that her name was
Poledra, and I liked the sound of it. I found that I liked almost
everything about her.
“One wonders by what name you are called,” she said after she had
introduced herself.
“I’m Belgarath,” I replied, “and I’m first disciple of the God
Aldur.”
“How remarkable,” she noted, and then she laughed, touching my arm
familiarly as if we’d known each other for years.
I lingered in her cottage for a few days, and then I regretfully told
her that I had to go back to the Vale to report what I’d found out in
the north to my Master.
“I will go along with you,” she told me.
“From what you say, there are remarkable things to be seen in your
Vale, and I was ever curious.” Then she closed the door of her house
and returned with me to the Vale.
Strangely, my Master was waiting for us, and he greeted Poledra
courteously. I can never really be sure, but it seemed to me that some
mysterious glance passed between them as if they knew each other and
shared some secret that I was not aware of.
All right. I’m not stupid. Naturally I had some suspicions, but as
time went by, they became less and less important, and I quite firmly
put them out of my mind.
Poledra simply moved into my tower with me. We never actually
discussed it; she just took up residence. That raised a few eyebrows
among my brothers, to be sure, but I’ll fight anyone who has the bad
manners to suggest that there was anything improper about our living
arrangements.
It put my willpower to the test, I’ll admit, but I behaved myself. That
always seemed to amuse Poledra for some reason.
I thought my way through our situation extensively that winter, and I
finally came to a decision–a decision Poledra had obviously made a
long time ago. She and I were married the following spring. My Master
himself, burdened though he was, blessed our union.
There was joy in our marriage, and a kind of homey, familiar comfort.
I never once thought about those things that I had prudently decided
not to think about, so they in no way clouded the horizon. But that,
of course, is another story.
Don’t rush me. We’ll get to it–all in good time.
CHAPTER TEN
I’m sure you can understand that I -wanted peace in the world at that
particular time. A newly married man has better things to do than to
dash off to curb the belligerence of others. Unfortunately, it was no
more than a couple of years after Poledra and I were married when the
Alorn clan wars broke out. Aldur summoned the twins and me to his
tower as soon as word of that particular idiocy reached us.
“Ye must go there,” he told us in a tone that didn’t encourage
disagreement. Our Master seldom commanded us, so we paid rather close
attention to him when he did.
“It is essential that the current royal house of Aloria remain in
power. One will descend from that line who will be vital to our
interests.”
I wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of leaving Poledra behind, but I
certainly wasn’t going to take her into the middle of a war.
“Wilt thou look after my wife, Master?” I asked him. It was a foolish
question, of course. Naturally he’d look after her, but I wanted him
to understand my reluctance to go to Aloria and my reasons for it.
“She will be safe with me,” he assured me.
Safe, perhaps, but not happy about being left behind. She argued with
me about it at first, but I led her to believe that it was Aldur’s
command–which wasn’t exactly a lie, was it?
“I won’t be all that long,” I promised her.
“Don’t be,” she replied.
“One would have you understand that one is discontented about this.”
Anyway, the twins and I left the Vale and started north the first thing
the next morning. When we reached the cottage where I’d met Poledra,
the she-wolf was waiting for us. The twins were somewhat surprised,
but I don’t think I really was.
“Another of those errands?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I replied flatly, “and one does not require company.”
“Your requirements are none of my concern,” she told me, her tone just
as flat as mine.
“I will go along with you whether you like it or not.”
“As you wish.” I surrendered. I’d learned a long time ago just how
useless it was to give her orders.
And so we were four when we reached the southern border of Aloria and
began looking for Belar. I think he was avoiding us, though, because
we weren’t able to find him. He could have stopped the clan wars at
any time, of course, but Belar had a stubborn streak in him that was at
least a mile wide. He absolutely would not take sides when his Alorns
started bickering with each other. Even-handedness is probably a good
trait in a God, but this was ridiculous. We finally gave up our search
for him and went on to the mouth of the river that bears our Master’s
name and looked out across what has come to be known as the Gulf of
Cherek. We saw ships out there, but they didn’t look all that
seaworthy to me. A flat-bottomed scow with a squared-off front end
isn’t my idea of a corsair that skims the waves. The twins and I
talked it over and decided to change form and fly across rather than
hail one of those leaky tubs.
“One notes that you still have not learned to fly well,” the snowy owl
ghosting along at my side observed.
“I get by,” I told her, clawing at the air with my wings.
“But not well.” She always had to get in the last word, so I didn’t
bother trying to answer, but concentrated instead on keeping my tail
feathers out of the water.
After what seemed an interminable flight, we reached the crude seaport
that stood on the site of what’s now Val Alorn and went looking for
King Chaggat’s direct descendant. King Uvar Bent-beak. We found him
splitting wood in the stump-dotted clearing outside his log house. Ran
Vordue IV, the then-current Emperor of Tolnedra, lived in a palace.
Uvar Bent-beak ruled an empire at least a dozen times the size of
Tolnedra, but he lived in a log shack with a leaky roof, and I don’t
think it ever occurred to him to order one of his thralls to chop his
firewood for him. Thralldom never really worked in Aloria, since
Alorns don’t make good slaves. The institution was never actually
abolished. It just fell into disuse. Anyway, Uvar was stripped to the
waist, sweating like a pig, and chopping for all he was worth.
“Hail, Belgarath,” he greeted me, sinking his axe into his chopping
block and mopping the sweat off his bearded face. I always kept in
touch with the Alorn kings, so he knew me on sight.
“Hail, Bent-beak,” I replied.
“What’s going on up here?”
“I’m cutting wood,” he told me, his face very serious.
“Yes,” I said,
“I noticed that almost immediately, but that wasn’t what I was talking
about. We heard that you’ve got a war on your hands.”
Uvar had little pig-like eyes, and he squinted at me around that huge
broken nose of his.
“Oh,” he said, “that. It’s not much of a war really. I can deal with
it.”
“Uvar,” I told him as patiently as I could, “if you plan to deal with
it, don’t you think it’s time you got started? It’s been going on for
a year and a half now.”
“I’ve been sort of busy, Belgarath,” he said defensively.
“I had to patch my roof, and winter’s coming on, so I have to lay in a
store of firewood.”
Can you believe that this man was a direct ancestor of King Anheg?
To hide my exasperation with him, I introduced the twins.
“Why don’t we all go inside?” Uvar suggested.
“I’ve got a barrel of fairly good ale, and I’m a little tired of
splitting wood anyway.”
The twins, with an identical gesture, concealed the grins that came to
their faces, and we went into Uvar’s “palace,” a cluttered shack with a
dirt floor and the crudest furniture you can imagine.
“What started this war, Uvar?” I asked the King of Aloria after we had