“One drop,” Polgara said. “No. Make that two.”
“Two?” Sadi exclaimed.
“I want it to last until the pain subsides.”
“Two drops will do that, all right,” Sadi said, “but you’ll have to confine her until it wears off.”
“I’ll keep her asleep if I need to.”
Dubiously, Sadi opened his red case and removed a vial of deep purple liquid. “This is against my better judgment, Lady Polgara,” he said.
“Trust me.”
“It always makes me nervous when somebody says that,” Belgarath said to Beldin.
“A lot of things make you nervous. We can’t go anywhere until the girl’s better. Pol knows what she’s doing.”
“Maybe,” Belgarath replied.
Sadi carefully measured two drops of the purple medication into a cup of water and stirred the mixture with his finger. Then he rather carefully dried his hand on a piece of cloth. He handed the cup to Velvet. “Drink it slowly,” he instructed. “You’ll begin to feel very strange almost immediately.”
“Strange?” she asked suspiciously.
“We can talk about it later. All you need to know now is that it’s going to make the pain go away.”
Velvet sipped at the cup. “It doesn’t taste bad,” she observed.
“Of course not,” the eunuch replied, “and you’ll find t it tastes better and better as you get toward the bottom the cup.”
Velvet continued to take small sips of the liquid. Her face flushed. “My,” she said, “isn’t it warm in here all of sudden?”
Silk sat down on the bench beside her. “Is it helping at all?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“How’s the shoulder?”
“Did you see my bruise, Kheldar?” She pulled her dress open to show it to him. She showed him—and everyone else in the room—other things as well. “Oops,” she said absently, not bothering to cover herself.
“I think you’d better take those steps you mentioned, Lady Polgara,” Sadi said. “The situation is likely to get out of hand any minute now.”
Polgara nodded and put one hand briefly on Velvet’s brow. Garion felt a light surge.
“Suddenly I feel so very drowsy,” Velvet said. “Is the medicine doing that?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Polgara replied.
Velvet’s head drooped forward, and she laid it on Silk’s shoulder.
“Bring her along, Silk,” Polgara told the little man. “Let’s find a bed for her.”
Silk picked the sleeping girl up and carried her from the room with Polgara close beside him.
“Does that stuff always have that effect?” Ce’Nedra asked
“Miseth? Oh yes. It could arouse a stick.”
“And does it work on men, too?”
“Gender makes no difference, your Majesty.”
“How very interesting.” She gave Garion a sly, sidelong glance. “Don’t lose that little bottle, Sadi,” she said.
“Never mind,” Garion told her.
It took them perhaps a quarter of an hour to tidy up the room. Polgara was smiling when she and Silk returned.
“She’ll sleep now,” she said. “I looked into the other rooms, too. The woman of the house appears to have been a neat sort of person,” she said. “This is the only that was seriously disturbed when the family left.”
She set her candle down and smoothed the front of her gray dress with a satisfied expression. “The house will do very nicely, uncle,” she told Beldin.
“I’m glad you approve,” he replied. He was sprawled on a high-backed bench by the window and was carefully re-tying the thong that held his ragged left sleeve in place.
“How far are we from the river?” Belgarath asked him.
“It’s still a ways—a good day’s hard riding at least. I can’t be much more exact than that. When the wind came up, it almost blew off my feathers.”
“Is the country on up ahead still empty?”
“It’s hard to be sure. I was up fairly high, and if there are any people out there, they’d all have taken cover from this storm.”
“We’ll have to have a look in the morning.” Belgarath leaned back in his chair and stretched his feet out toward the hearth. “That fire was a good idea,” he said. “There’s a definite chill in the air.”
“That happens sometimes when you pile three or four inches of ice on the ground,” Beldin told him. The ugly little man squinted thoughtfully. “If this sort of storm is a regular afternoon occurrence around here, we’ll need to cross the Magan during the morning hours,” he noted. “Getting caught in a hailstorm in an open boat isn’t my idea of fun.”
“Now you stop that!” Sadi said sharply to Zith’s earthenware bottle.
“What’s the trouble?” Ce’Nedra asked.
“She was making a funny little noise,” Sadi replied. “I wanted to see if she was all right, and she hissed at me.”
“She does that every now and then, doesn’t she?”
“This was a bit different. She was actually warning me to stay away from her.”
“Could she be ill?”
“I wouldn’t think so. She’s a fairly young snake, and I’ve been very careful about what I feed her.”
“Perhaps she needs a tonic.” Ce’Nedra looked questioningly at Polgara.
Polgara laughed helplessly. “I’m sorry, Ce’Nedra,” she said, “but I have no experience with the illnesses of reptiles.”
“Do you suppose we could talk about something else?” Silk asked plaintively. “Zith is a nice enough little animal, I suppose, but she’s still a snake.”
Ce’Nedra whirled on him, her eyes suddenly flashing. “How can you say that?” she snapped angrily. “She’s saved our lives twice— once in Rak Urga when she nipped that Grolim, Sorchak, and again at Ashaba when she bit Harfakan. Without her, we wouldn’t be here. You might show at least a little bit of gratitude.”
““Well …” he said a little uncertainly. “You could be right, I suppose, but hang it all, Ce’Nedra, I can’t abide snakes!”
“I don’t even think of her as a snake.”
“Ce’Nedra,” he said patiently, “she’s long and skinny, she wriggles, she doesn’t have any arms or legs, and she’s poisonous. By definition, she’s a snake.”
“You’re prejudiced,” she accused.
“Well— yes, I suppose you could say that.”
“I’m bitterly disappointed in you, Prince Kheldar. She’s sweet, loving, brave little creature, and you’re insulting her.”
He looked at her for a moment, then rose to his feet and floridly to the earthenware bottle. “I’m dreadfully sorry, dear Zith,” he apologized. “I can’t think what came over me. Can you possibly find it in your cold little green heart to forgive me?”
Zith hissed at him, a hiss ending in a curious grunt. “She says to leave her alone,” Sadi told him.
“Can you really understand what she’s saying?”
“In a general sort of way, yes. Snakes have a very limited vocabulary, so it’s not all that difficult to pick up a few here and there.” The eunuch frowned. “She’s been hissing a great deal lately, though, and that’s not like her. She’s usually a very ladylike little snake.”
“I can’t believe I’m actually involved in this conversation,” Silk said, shaking his head and going off down toward the back of the house. Polgara returned with Tom and Eriond. They were carrying packs containing Polgara’s utensils and the food. She looked critically at the fireplace and its facilities.
“We’ve been eating some rather sketchy meals lately,” she noted. “We have a fairly adequate kitchen here, so why don’t we take advantage of it?” She opened the food pack and rummaged through it. “I wish I had something besides travel rations to work with,” she said half to herself.
“There’s a hen roost out back, Pol,” Beldin told her helpfully.
She smiled at him. “Durnik, dear,” she said in an almost dreamy tone of voice.
“I’ll see to it at once, Pol. Three, maybe?”
“Make it four. Then we’ll be able to carry some cold chicken with us when we leave. Ce’Nedra, go with him and gather up all the eggs you can find.”
Ce’Nedra stared at her in astonishment. “I’ve never gathered eggs before, Lady Polgara,” she protested.
“It’s not hard, dear. Just be careful not to break them, that’s all.”
“But—”
“I thought I’d make a cheese omelette for breakfast.”
Ce’Nedra’s eyes brightened. “I’ll get a basket,” she said quickly.
“Splendid idea, dear. Uncle, are there any other interesting things about this place?”
“There’s a brewhouse at the back of the building.” He shrugged. “I didn’t have time to look into it.”
Belgarath rose to his feet. “Why don’t we do that right now?” he suggested.
“People in farm villages don’t make very good beer, Belgarath.”
“Maybe this one’s an exception. We’ll never know until we try it, will we?”
“You’ve got a point there.”
The two old sorcerers went off toward the back of the house while Eriond piled more wood on the fire.
Ce’Nedra returned, frowning and a little angry. “They won’t give me their eggs, Lady Polgara,” she complained. “They’re sitting on them.”
“You have to reach under them and take the eggs, dear.”
“Won’t that make them angry?”
“Are you afraid of a chicken?”
The little queen’s eyes hardened, and she left the room purposefully.