DAVID EDDINGS – SORCERESS OF DARSHIVA

One of Silk’s eyebrows shot up.

“It’s the isolation, your Highness,” the servant confided, looking embarrassed. “Her Grace is not happy in this somewhat bucolic locale, and she’s resorted to a certain amount of reinforcement in her exile.”

“Reinforcement?”

“I trust I can count on your Highness’ discretion?”

“Of course.”

“Her Grace takes some wine from time to time, your Highness, and this appears to be one of those times. I’m afraid she’s had a bit more than is really good for her.”

“This early in the morning?”

“Her Grace does not keep what one might call regular hours. If you’ll come with me, please.”

As they followed the servant down a long corridor, Silk murmured back over his shoulder to the rest of them. “Follow my lead on this,” he said. “Just smile and try not to look too startled at what I say.”

“Don’t you just love it when he gets devious?” Velvet said admiringly to Ce’Nedra.

The archduchess was a lady in her mid-thirties. She had luxurious dark hair and very large eyes. She had a pouting lower lip and an ever-so-slightly overgenerous figure which filled her burgundy gown to the point of overflowing. She was also as drunk as a lord. She had discarded her goblet and now drank directly from a decanter. “Prince Kheldar,” She hiccupped, trying to curtsy. Sadi moved sinuously to catch her arm to prevent a disaster.

“ ‘Scuse me,” she slurred to him. “So nice of you.”

“My pleasure, your Grace,” the eunuch said politely.

She blinked at him several times. “Are you really bald-or is that an affectation?”

“It’s a cultural thing, your Grace,” he explained, bowing.

“How disappointing,” she sighed, rubbing her hand over his head and taking another drink from the decanter. “Could I offer you all something to drink?” she asked brightly.

Most of them declined with faint headshakes. Beldin, however, stumped forward with his hand extended. “Why not?” the grotesque little man said. “Let’s try a rip of that, me girl.” For some reason he had lapsed into Feldegast’s brogue.

Belgarath rolled his eyes ceiling ward.

The archduchess laughed uproariously and passed over the decanter.

Beldin drained it without stopping for breath. “Very tasty,” he belched, tossing the decanter negligently into a corner, “but ale’s me preference, y’r Ladyship. Wine’s hard on the stomach so early of a morning.”

“Ale it shall be, then,” she crowed happily. “We’ll all sit around and swill ourselves into insensibility.” She fell back on a couch, exposing a great deal of herself in the process. “Bring ale,” she commanded the embarrassed servant, “lots and lots of ale.”

“As your Grace commands,” the tall man replied stiffly, withdrawing.

“Nice enough fellow,” the archduchess slurred, “but he’s so terribly stuffy sometimes. He absolutely refuses to take a drink with me.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Nobody wants to drink with me,” she complained. She held out her arms imploringly to Beldin, and he enfolded her in an embrace. “You understand, don’t you, my friend?” she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Of course I do,” he said, patting her shoulder. “There, there, me little darlin’,” he said, “ ‘twill all be right again soon.”

The noblewoman regained her composure, sniffed loudly, and fished for a handkerchief. “It’s not that I want to be like this, your Highness,” she apologized, trying to focus her eyes on Silk. “It’s just that I’m so absolutely bored out here. Otrath has all the social grace of an oyster, so he’s imprisoned me out here in the hinterlands with nothing but the booming of the surf and the screeching of gulls for company. I so miss the balls and the dinner parties and the conversation in Melcena. What am I to do with myself out here?”

“ ‘Tis cruel hard, me darlin’,” Beldin agreed. He took the small cask of ale the servant cringingly brought, placed it between his knees, and bashed in the top with his gnarled fist. “Would ye care fer a sup, sweeting?” he asked the duchess politely, holding out the cask.

“I’d drown if I tried to drink out of that,” she protested with a silly little laugh.

“Right y’ are,” he agreed. “You there,” he said to Belgarath. “Get the poor girl a cup or somethin’.”

Belgarath scowled at his gnarled brother, then wordlessly fetched a silver tankard from a sideboard.

Beldin dipped deeply into the cask with the tankard, swiped off the bottom with his sleeve, and offered it to their hostess. “To yer good health, me darlin’,” he said, drinking from the cask.

“You’re so kind,” she hiccupped. Then she drained off about half the tankard with foamy ale spilling out of the comers of her mouth and down the front of her gown.

“We were very sorry to have missed his Grace,” Silk said, obviously a little nonplussed by Beldin’s rough-and-ready approach to a highborn, though tipsy, lady.

“You didn’t miss a thing, your Highness,” she burped, politely covering her mouth. “My husband’s a fat green toad with all the charm of a dead rat. He spends his time trying to decipher his proximity to the imperial throne. Kal Zakath has no heir, so all the imperial cousins sit around waiting for one another to die and trying to cement alliances. Have you ever been in Mal Zetn, your Highness? It’s an absolutely ghastly place. Frankly, imperial crown or no, I’d sooner live in Hell.” She drained her tankard and handed it wordlessly back to Beldin. Then she looked around brightly, her eyes slightly unfocused. “But my dear Prince “Kheldar,” she said, “you haven’t introduced me to your friends as yet.”

“How terribly forgetful of me, your Grace,” he exclaimed, slapping his hand to his forehead. He rose formally to his feet. “Your Grace, I have the honor to present her Grace, the Duchess of Erat.” He held his hand out grandly to Polgara, who rose and curtsied.

“Your Grace,” she murmured.

“Your Grace,” the archduchess replied, trying to rise, but not quite succeeding.

“There, there, me darlin’,” Beldin said, pressing down on her shoulder to keep her more or less in place. “ Tis early, an’ we’re all friends. There’s no need at all fer us t’ be goin’ through all these tiresome formalities.”

“I like him,” the noblewoman said, pointing at Beldin with one hand and dipping out more ale with the other. “Can I keep him?”

“Sorry, your Grace,” Belgarath said. “We might need him later on.”

“So grim a face,” she observed, looking at the ancient sorcerer. She grinned roguishly. “I’ll wager I could make you smile.”

Silk rushed on. “Her Highness, Princess Ce’Nedra of the House of Borune,” he said, “and the Margravine Liselle of Drasnia. The young man with the sword is known as the Lord of the Western Sea—an obscure title, I’ll grant you, but his people are an obscure sort of folk.” Garion bowed deeply to the tipsy archduchess.

“So great a sword you have, my Lord,” she said.

“It’s a family heirloom, your Grace,” he replied. “I’m more or less obliged to carry it.”

“The others have no titles they care to acknowledge,” Silk said. “They’re business associates, and we don’t worry about titles where money is concerned.”

“Do you have a title?” the lady asked Beldin.

“Several, me little darlin’,” he replied in an offhand way, “but none from any land ye’d be recognizin’ the name of— most of ‘em havin’ disappeared long ago.” He raised the cask again and drank noisily.

“What a dear little man you are,” she said in a smoldering sort of voice.

“ ‘Tis me charm, darlin’,” he replied with a resigned sort of sigh. “ ‘Tis always been me bane, this charmin’ quality about me. Sometimes I must actually hide myself t’ keep off the maids overpowered with unreasonin’ passion.” He sighed again, then belched.

“We might want to talk about that one of these days,” she suggested.

Silk was obviously out of his depth here. “Ah—” he said lamely, “—as I was saying, we’re sorry to have missed the archduke.”

“I can’t for the life of me think why, your Highness,” the lady said bluntly. “My husband’s an unmitigated ass, and he doesn’t bathe regularly. He has wild aspirations about the imperial throne and very little in the way of prospects in that direction.” She held out her tankard to Beldin. “Would you, dear?”

He squinted down into the cask. “It could just be that we’ll need another, me darlin’,” he suggested.

“I’ve got a cellar full,” she sighed happily. “We can go ;on like this for days, if you’d like.”

Belgarath and Beldin exchanged a long look. “Never mind,” Belgarath said.

“But-”

“Never mind.”

“You were saying that your husband has imperial ambitions, your Grace,” Silk floundered on.

“Can you imagine that idiot as emperor of Mallorea?” She sneered. “Half the time he can’t even get his shoes on the right feet. Fortunately, he’s a long way down the line of succession.”

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