“It was that corporal who’d been demoted just before we arrived in Mal Zeth,” Ce’Nedra reminded him. “The one whose wife was making such a scene in that side street.”
“Oh, yes,” Zakath said. “Now I remember. Drunk, you say? He’s not supposed to drink any more.”
“I doubt if he could drink any more, your Majesty,” Atesca said with a faint smile, “at least not right now. He’s as drunk as a lord.”
“Is he nearby?”
“Just outside, your Majesty.”
Zakath sighed. “I guess you’d better bring him in,” he said. He looked at Belgarath. “This should only take a moment or two,” he apologized.
Garion remembered the scrawny corporal as soon as the fellow staggered into the tent. The corporal tried to come to attention, without much success. Then he at-tempted to bang his breastplate in a salute, but hit himself in the nose with his fist instead. “Yer Imperrl Majeshy,” he slurred.
“What am I going to do with you, Actas,” Zakath said wearily.
“I’ve made a beash of myshelf, yer Majeshy,” Actas confessed, “an absholute beash.”
“Yes,” Zakath agreed, “you have.” He turned his head away. “Please don’t breathe on me, Actas. Your mouth smells like a reopened grave. Take him out and sober him op, Atesca.”
“I’ll personally throw him in the river, your Majesty.” Atesca was trying to suppress a grin.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Me, your Majesty?”
Zakath’s eyes narrowed slyly. “Well, Ce’Nedra?” he said. “He’s your responsibility, too. What do we do with him?”
She waved one little hand negligently. “Hang him,” she said in an indifferent tone. She looked more closely at her hand. “Great Nedra!” she exclaimed. “I’ve broken another fingernail!”
Corporal Actas’ eyes were bulging and his mouth was suddenly agape. Trembling violently, he fell to his knees. “Please, your Majesty,” he begged, suddenly cold sober. “Please!”
Zakath squinted at the Rivan Queen, who sat mourning the broken nail. “Take him outside, Atesca,” he said. “I’ll give you orders for his final disposition in a moment.1’
Atesca saluted and hauled the blubbering Actas to his feet.
“You weren’t really serious, were you, Ce’Nedra?” Zakath asked after the two men had left.
“Oh, of course not,” she said. “I’m not a monster, Zakath. Clean him up and send him back to his wife.” She tapped one finger thoughtfully on her chin. “But erect a gibbet in the street in front of his house. Give him something to think about the next time he gets thirsty.”
“You actually married this woman?” Zakath exclaimed to Garion.
“It was sort of arranged by our families,” Garion replied with aplomb. “We didn’t have much to say about it.”
“Now, be nice, Garion,” Ce’Nedra said with unruffled calm.
They mounted their horses outside the pavilion and rode through the camp to the drawbridge spanning the deep, stake-studded ditch that formed a part of the outer fortifications. When they reached the far side of the ditch, Zakath let out an explosive breath of relief.
“What is it?” Garion asked him.
“I was half afraid that somebody might have found a way to keep me there.” He glanced a bit apprehensively back over his shoulder. “Do you think we could possibly gallop for a ways?” he asked. “I’d hate to have them catch up with me.”
Garion began to have misgivings at that point. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’ve never felt better—or more free—in my entire life,” Zakath declared.
“I was afraid of that,” Garion muttered.
“What?”
“Just keep moving at a canter, Zakath. There’s something I need to discuss with Belgarath. I’ll be right back.” He reined Chretienne in and rode back to where his grandfather and his aunt rode side by side, deep in conversation. “He’s absolutely out of control,” he told them. “What’s happened to him?”
“It’s the first time in his entire life that he hasn’t had the weight of half the world on his shoulders, Garion,” Polgara replied calmly. “He’ll settle down. Just give him a day or so.”
“Do we have a day or so? He’s acting exactly the way Lelldorin would—or maybe even Mandorallen. Can we afford that?”
“Talk to him,” Belgarath suggested. “Just keep talking. Recite the Book of Atom to him if you have to.”
“But I don’t know the Book of Alorn, Grandfather,” Gar-ion objected.
“Yes, you do. It’s in your blood. You could have recited it letter-perfect in your cradle. Now get back up there before he gets completely out of hand.”
Garion swore and rode back to rejoin Zakath.
“Trouble?” Silk asked him.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Beldin was waiting for them around the next bend in the road. “Well,” the grotesque little hunchback said. “It seems to have worked, but why did you bring him along?”
“Cyradis persuaded him to come with us,” Belgarath replied. “What gave you the idea of going to her?”
“It was worth a try. Pol told me about a few of the things she said to him back in Cthol Murgos. She seems to have some sort of interest in him. I didn’t really think he was ‘ supposed to join us, though. What did she say to him?”
“She told him that he’d die if he didn’t come with us.”
“I imagine that got his attention. Hello, Zakath.”
“Do we know each other?”
“I know you—by sight, anyway. I’ve seen you parading through the streets of Mal Zeth a few times.”
“This is my brother Beldin,” Belgarath introduced the misshapen dwarf.
“I didn’t know you had any brothers.”
“The relationship’s a bit obscure, but we serve the same Master, so that makes us brothers in a peculiar sort of way. There used to be seven of us, but there are only four of us left now.”
Zakath frowned slightly. “Your name rings a bell, Master Beldin,” he said. “Aren’t you the one whose picture is posted on every tree for six leagues in any direction from Mal Yaska?”
“I believe that’s me, all right. I make Urvon a little nervous. He seems to think that I want to split him up the middle.”
“Do you?”
“I’ve thought about it a time or two. I think what I’d really like to do, though, is yank out his guts, hang them on a thornbush, and invite in some vultures. I’m sure he’d find watching them eat very entertaining.”
Zakath blanched slightly.
“Vultures have to eat, too.” The hunchback shrugged. “Oh, speaking of eating. Pol, do you have anything decent around? All I’ve had in the last few days was a very scrawny rat and a nest full of crow’s eggs. I don’t think there’s a rabbit or a pigeon left in the whole of Darshiva.”
“This is a very unusual fellow,” Zakath said to Garion.
“He gets more unusual the more you get to know him.” Garion smiled slightly. “He frightened Urvon almost into sanity at Ashaba.”
“He was exaggerating, wasn’t he—about the vultures, I mean?”
“Probably not. He fully intends to gut Torak’s last Disciple like a butchered hog.”
Zakath’s eyes grew bright. “You think he might want some help?” he asked eagerly.
“Were any of your ancestors possibly Arendish?” Garion asked suspiciously.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Nevermind.” Garion sighed.
Beldin squatted in the dirt at the roadside, tearing at the carcass of a cold roast chicken. “You burnt it, Pol,” he accused.
“I didn’t cook it, uncle,” she replied primly.
“Why not? Did you forget how?”
“I have a wonderful recipe for boiled dwarf,” she told him. “I’m almost sure I could find someone willing to eat that sort of thing.”
“You’re losing your edge again, Pol,” he said, wiping his greasy fingers on the front of his ragged tunic. “Your mind’s getting as flabby as your bottom.”
Garion restrained Zakath with one hand when the Mallorean Emperor’s face grew outraged. “It’s a personal thing,” he cautioned. “I wouldn’t interfere. They’ve been .insulting each other for thousands of years. It’s a peculiar kind of love, I think.”
“Love?”
“Listen,” Garion suggested. “You might learn something. Alorns aren’t like Angaraks. We don’t bow very often and we sometimes hide our feelings with jokes.”
“Polgara is an Alorn?” Zakath sounded surprised.
“Use your eyes, man. Her hair’s dark, I’ll grant you, but her twin sister was as blond as a wheat field. Look at her cheekbones and her jaw. I rule a kingdom of Alorns and I know what they look like. She and Liselle could be sisters.”
“Now that you mention it, they do look a bit alike, don’t they? How is it I never saw that before?”
“You hired Brador to be your eyes,” Garion replied, > shifting his mail shirt. “I don’t trust other peoples’ eyes all that much.”
“Is Beldin an Alorn, too?”
“Nobody knows what Beldin is. He’s so deformed that you can’t put a name to him.” ;. “Poor fellow.”
[- “Don’t waste your pity on Beldin,” Garion replied. “He’s »’«x thousand years old and he could turn you into a frog if he felt like it. He can make it snow or rain, and he’s far, tar smarter than Belgarath.”