yourself a nice Alorn girl instead. You’ll be happier in the long
run.”
He sighed.
“She is pretty, though.”
“That she is, my friend, but Pol’s got other things to do. The time
might come when she’ll get married, but that’ll be her decision, and
it’s still a long way off. How far is it upriver to Braca?”
“A day or so. We have to go through the fens to get there.” He tugged
at his beard.
“I’ve been thinking of draining the fens. That region might make good
farmland if I could get rid of all the water.”
I shrugged.
“It’s your kingdom, but I think draining the fens might turn into quite
a chore. Have you heard from your father lately?”
“A month or so ago. His new wife’s going to have another baby.
They’re hoping for a boy this time. I suppose my half sister could
take the throne after father dies, but Alorns aren’t comfortable with
the idea of a queen. It seems unnatural to us.”
You have no idea of how long it took me to change that particular
attitude.
Porenn is probably one of the most gifted rulers in history, but
back-country Drasnians still don’t take her seriously.
I slept a little late the next morning, and it was almost noon before
we got under way.
The Mrin River is sluggish at its mouth, which accounts for the fens, I
suppose. The fens are a vast marshland lying between the Mrin and the
Aldur. It’s one of the least attractive areas in the North, if you
want my personal opinion. I don’t like swamps, though, so that might
account for my attitude. They smell, and the air’s always so humid
that I can’t seem to get my breath. And then, of course, there are all
those bugs that look upon people as a food source. I stayed in the
cabin while we went upriver.
Polgara, though, paced around the deck, trailing clouds of suitors. I
know she was having fun, but I certainly wouldn’t have given every
mosquito for ten miles in any direction a clear invitation to drink my
blood, no matter how much fun I was having.
Bull-neck’s ship captain dropped anchor at sundown. The channel was
clearly marked by buoys, but it’s still not a good idea to wander
around in the fens in the dark. There are too many chances for things
to go wrong.
Dras and I were sitting in the cabin after supper, and it wasn’t too
long before Pol joined us.
“Dras?” she said as she entered.
“Why do your people wiggle their fingers at each other all the time?”
“Oh, that’s just the secret language,” he replied.
“Secret language?”
“The merchants came up with the notion. I guess there are times when
you’re doing business that you need to talk privately with your
partner. They’ve developed a kind of sign language. It was fairly
simple right at first, but it’s getting a little more complicated
now.”
“Do you know this language?”
He held out one huge hand.
“With fingers like these? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It might be a useful thing to know. Don’t you think so, father?”
“We have other ways to communicate, Pol.”
“Perhaps, but I still think I’d like to learn this secret language. I
don’t like having people whispering to each other behind my back–even
if they’re doing it with their fingers. Do you happen to have someone
on board ship who’s proficient at it, Dras?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t pay much attention to it, myself. I’ll ask around, though
“I’d appreciate it.”
We set out again the following morning and reached the village of Braca
about noon. Dras and I stood at the rail as we approached it.
“Not a very pretty place, is it?” I observed, looking at the
collection of rundown shanties huddled on the muddy riverbank.
“It’s not Tol Honeth, by any stretch of the imagination,” he agreed.
“When we first found out about this crazy man, I was going to take him
to Boktor, but he was born here, and he goes wild when you try to take
him away from the place. We decided that it’d be better just to leave
him here.
The scribes don’t care much for the idea, but that’s what I’m paying
them so much for. They’re here to write down what he says, not to
enjoy the scenery.”
“Are you sure they’re writing it down accurately?”
“How would I know, Belgarath? I can’t read. You know that.”
“Do you mean you still haven’t learned how?”
“Why should I bother? That’s what scribes are for. If something’s all
that important, they’ll read it to me. The ones here have worked out a
sort of system. There are always three of them with the crazy man. Two
of them write down what he says, and the third one listens to him. When
he finishes, they compare the two written versions, and the one who
does the listening decides which one’s accurate.”
“It sounds a little complicated.”
“You made quite an issue of how much you wanted accuracy. If you can
think up an easier way, I’d be glad to hear it.”
Our ship coasted up to the rickety dock, the sailors moored her, and we
went ashore to have a look at the Mrin Prophet.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone quite so dirty. He wore only a
crude canvas loincloth, and his hair and beard were long and matted. He
was wearing an iron collar, and a stout chain ran from the collar to
the thick post set in the ground in front of his kennel–I’m sorry, but
that’s the only word I can use to describe the low hut where he
apparently slept.
He crouched on the ground near the post making animal noises and
rhythmically jerking on the chain that bound him to the post. His eyes
were deep-sunk under shaggy brows, and there was no hint of
intelligence or even humanity in them.
“Do you really have to chain him like that?” Polgara asked Dras.
Bull-neck nodded.
“He has spells,” he replied.
“He used to run off into the fens every so often. He’d be gone for a
week or two, and then he’d come crawling back. When we found out just
who and what he is, we decided we’d better chain him for his own
safety. There are sinkholes and quicksand bogs out in the fens, and
the poor devil doesn’t have sense enough to avoid them. He can’t
recite prophecy if he’s twelve feet down in a quicksand bog.”
She looked at the low hut.
“Do you really have to treat him like an animal?”
“Polgara, he is an animal. He stays in that kennel because he wants
to. He gets hysterical if you take him inside a house.”
“You said he was born here,” I noted.
Dras nodded.
“About thirty or forty years ago. This was all part of father’s
kingdom before we went to Mallorea. The village has been here for
about seventy years, I guess. Most of the villagers are fishermen.”
I went over to where the three scribes on duty were sitting in the
shade of a scrubby willow tree and introduced myself.
“Has he said anything lately?” I asked.
“Not for the past week,” one of them replied.
“I think maybe it’s the moon that sets him off. He’ll talk at various
other times, but he always does when the moon’s full.”
“I suppose there might be some explanation for that. Isn’t there some
way you can clean him up a little?”
The scribe shook his head.
“We’ve tried throwing pails of water on him, but he just rolls in the
mud again. I think he likes being dirty.”
“Let me know immediately when he starts talking again. I have to hear
him.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to make much sense out of what he’s
saying, Belgarath,” one of the other scribes told me.
“That’ll come later. I’ve got the feeling that I’m going to spend a
lot of time studying what he says. Does he ever talk about ordinary
things?
The weather or maybe how hungry he is?”
“No,” the first scribe replied.
“As closely as we’re able to determine, he can’t talk–at least that’s
what the villagers say. It was about eight or ten years ago when he
started. It makes our job easier, though. We don’t have to wade
through casual conversation. Everything he says is important.”
We stayed on board Bull-neck’s ship that night. We needed the
cooperation of the villagers, and I didn’t want to stir up any
resentments by commandeering their houses while we were in Braca.
About noon the following day one of the scribes came down to the
dock.
“Belgarath,” he called to me.
“You’d better come now. He’s talking.”
One of the young Drasnians had been teaching Pol that sign language,
and he didn’t look too happy when she suspended the lesson to accompany