He frowned and thought back. “Imust have.”
“Not once.”
“Well, as long as we got married, anyway, it doesn’t really matter all that much, does it?”
Her expression turned to ice.
He caught that look. “Is it really that important, Ce’Nedra?” he asked her.
“Yes, Garion. It is.”
He sighed. “All right then. I guess I’d better do it.”
“Do what?”
“Propose. Will you marry me, Ce’Nedra?”
“Is that the best you can do?”
He gave her a long, steady look. She was, he had to admit, very appealing. She was wearing a pale green dress, all frilly and touched here and there with lace, and she sat rather primly in her chair, looking pouty and discontented. He arose from his chair, crossed to where she sat, and sank extravagantly to his knees. He took her small hand in both of his and looked imploringly into her face, trying to match the look of fatuous adoration that Mandorallen had worn.
“Will her Imperial Highness consent to have me as her husband?” he asked her. “I can offer little besides an honest, loving heart and boundless devotion.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked suspiciously.
“No.” he said. “You wanted a formal proposal, so I just gave you one. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Will you consent to marry me?”
She gave him an arch look, her eyes twinkling. Then she reached out fondly and tousled his hair. “I’ll think about it,” she replied.
“What do you mean, you’ll think about it?”
“Who knows?” she said with a smirk. “I might get a better offer. Do get up, Garion. You’ll make the knees of your hose all baggy if you stay down on the floor like that.”
He got to his feet. “Women!” he said exasperatedly, throwing his arms in the air.
She gave him that tiny, wide-eyed look that at one time, before he had come to recognize it as pure deception, had always made his knees go weak. “Don’t you love me any more?” she asked in that trembling, dishonest, little-girl voice.
“Didn’t we decide that we weren’t going to do that to each other any more?”
“This is a special occasion, dear,” she replied. And then she laughed, sprang up from her chair, and threw her arms about his neck. “Oh, Garion,” she said, still laughing. “Ido love you.”
“I certainly hope so,” he said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her upturned lips.
The following morning Garion dressed rather informally and then tapped on the door to Ce’Nedra’s private sitting room.
“Yes?” she answered.
“It’s Garion,” he said. “May I come in?”
His Sendarian good manners had been so deeply ingrained in him that even though he was the King here, he always asked permission before opening the door to someone else’s room.
“Of course,” she said.
He turned the latch and entered her frilly private domain, a room all pink and pale-green flounces and with yards of rustling satin and brocade drapery. Ce’Nedra’s favorite lady-in-waiting, Arell, rose in some confusion to perform the customary curtsy. Arell was Brand’s niece, the daughter of his youngest sister, and she was one of several highborn Rivan ladies who attended the queen. She was very nearly the archetypical Alorn woman, tall, blond, and buxom, with golden braids coiled about her head, deep blue eyes and a complexion like new milk. She and Ce’Nedra were virtually inseparable, and the two spent much of their time with their heads together, whispering and giggling. For some reason, Arell always blushed rosily whenever Garion entered the room. He did not understand that at all, but privately suspected that Ce’Nedra had told her lady-in-waiting certain things that reallyshould have remained private -things that brought a blush to the Rivan girl’s cheeks whenever she looked at him.
“I’m going down into the city,” Garion told his wife. “Did you want anything?”
“I prefer to do my own shopping, Garion,” Ce’Nedra replied, smoothing the front of her satin dressing gown. “You never get things right anyway.”
He was about to reply to that, but decided against it. “Whatever you want. I’ll see you at luncheon then.”
“As my Lord commands,” Ce’Nedra said with a mocking little genuflection.
“Stop that.”
She made a face at him and then came over and kissed him.
Garion turned to Arell. “My Lady,” he said, bowing politely.
Arell’s blue eyes were filled with suppressed mirth, and there was a slightly speculative look in them as well. She blushed and curtsied again. “Your Majesty,” she said respectfully.
As Garion left the royal apartment, he wondered idly what Ce’Nedra had told Arell to cause all those blushes and peculiar looks. He was grateful to the blond girl, however. Her presence provided Ce’Nedra with company, which left him free to attend to other matters. Since Aunt Pol had intervened and healed the estrangement that had caused them both so much anguish, Ce’Nedra had become very possessive about Garion’s spare time. On the whole he felt that being married was rather nice, but sometimes Ce’Nedra tended to overdo things a bit.
In the corridor outside, Brand’s second son, Kail, was waiting, holding a parchment sheet in his hand. “I think this needs your immediate attention, Sire,” he said formally.
Although Kail was a warrior, tall and broad-shouldered like his father and his brothers, he was nonetheless a studious man, intelligent and discreet, and he knew enough about Riva and its people to be able to sort through the voluminous petitions, appeals, and proposals directed to the throne and to separate the important from the trivial. When Garion had first come to the throne, the need for someone to manage the administrative staff had been painfully clear, and Kail had been the obvious choice for that post. He was about twenty-four years old and wore a neatly trimmed brown beard. The hours he had spent in study had given him a slight squint and a permanent furrow between his eyebrows. Since he and Garion spent several hours a day together, they had soon become friends, and Garion greatly respected Kail’s judgment and advice. “Is it serious?” he asked, taking the parchment and glancing at it.
“It could be, Sire,” Kail replied. “There’s a dispute over the ownership of a certain valley. The families involved are both quite powerful, and I think we’ll want to set the matter before things go any further.”
“Is there any clear-cut evidence of ownership on either side?”
Kail shook his head. “The two families have used the land in common for centuries. There’s been some friction between them lately, however.”
“I see,” Garion said. He thought about it. “No matter what I decide, one side or the other is going to be unhappy with me, right?”
“Very probably, your Majesty.”
” All right, then. We’ll let them both be unhappy. Write up something that sounds sort of official declaring that this valley of theirs now belongs to me. We’ll let them stew about that for a week or so, and then I’ll divide the land right down the middle and give half to each of them. They’ll be so angry with me that they’ll forget that they don’t like each other. I don’t want this island turning into another Arendia.”
Kail laughed. “Very practical, Belgarion,” he said.
Garion grinned at him. “I grew up in Sendaria, remember? Oh, keep a strip of the valley -about a hundred yards wide right through the center. Call it crown land or something and forbid them to trespass on it. That should keep them from butting heads along the fence line.” He handed the parchment back to Kail and went on down the corridor, rather pleased with himself.
His mission in the city that morning took him to the shop of a young glass blower of his acquaintance, a skilled artisan named Joran. Ostensibly the visit was for the purpose of inspecting a set of crystal goblets he had commissioned as a present for Ce’Nedra. Its real purpose, however, was somewhat more serious. Because his upbringing had been humble, Garion was more aware than most monarchs that the opinions and problems of the common people seldom came to the attention of the throne. He strongly felt that he needed a pair of ears in the city -not to spy out unfavorable opinion, but rather to give him a clear, unprejudiced awareness of the real problems of his people. Joran had been his choice for that task.
After they had gone through the motions of looking at the goblets, the two of them went into a small, private room at the back of Joran’s shop.
“I got your note as soon as I got back from Arendia,” Garion said. “Is the matter really that serious?”
“I believe so, your Majesty,” Joran replied. “The tax was poorly thought out, I think, and it’s causing a great deal of unfavorable comment.”
“All directed at me, I suppose?”
“Youare the king, after all.”
“Thanks,” Garion said drily. “What’s the main dissatisfaction with it?”