“Uh—Margravine Liselle,” Sadi said. “Do you happen to have Zith again?”
“Why, yes, Sadi, as a matter of fact, I do.” The honey-blond girl held up one hand to head off his objections. “But I didn’t steal her this time. She crawled into my tent in the middle of the night and crept into her favorite hiding place all on her own. The poor dear was actually shivering.”
Silk turned slightly pale.
“Would you like to have her back?” Velvet asked the shaved-headed eunuch.
“No,” Sadi sighed, rubbing his hand over his scalp, “I suppose not. As long as she’s happy where she is, we might as well leave her there.”
“She’s very happy. In fact, she’s purring.” Velvet frowned slightly. “I think you should watch her diet just a bit, Sadi,” she said critically. “Her little tummy seems to be getting bigger.” She smiled again. “We wouldn’t want a fat snake on our hands, would we?”
“Well, excuse me!” Sadi said, sounding very offended.
There was a large snag at the top of the pass, and the blue-banded hawk perched on a dead limb, busily preening his feathers with his hooked beak. As they approached, he swooped down, and Beldin stood in the trail in front of them, muttering curses.
“Something wrong, uncle?” Polgara asked him.
“I got caught in a crosswind,” he growled. “It scrambled my feathers a bit. You know how that goes.”
“Oh, goodness yes. It happens to me all the time. Night breezes are so unpredictable.”
“Your feathers are too soft.”
“I didn’t design the owl, uncle, so don’t blame me about the feathers.”
“There’s a crossroads tavern just up ahead,” Beldin said to Belgarath. “Did you want to stop and see if we can find out what’s going on down there on the plain?”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Belgarath agreed. “Let’s not ride into trouble if we don’t have to.”
“I’ll wait for you inside then,” Beldin said and soared away again.
Polgara sighed. “Why must it always be a tavern?” she complained.
“Because people who’ve been drinking like to talk, Pol,” Belgarath explained in a reasonable tone. “You can gather more information in five minutes in a tavern than you can in an hour in a tearoom.”
“I knew you’d be able to find a reason for it.”
“Naturally.”
They crossed over the top of the wooded pass and on down the shade-splotched trail to the tavern. It was a low building made of logs crudely chinked with mud. The roof was low, and its shingles had curled with the weather and the passage of years. Buff-colored chickens scratched at the dirt in the dooryard, and a large speckled sow lay in a mud puddle, nursing a litter of happily grunting piglets. There were a few spavined nags tied to a hitch rail in front of the tavern, and a Karand dressed in mom-eaten furs snored on the front stoop.
Polgara reined in her horse as they approached the tavern and the first whiff of its reeking interior reached her nostrils. “I think, ladies, that we might prefer to wait over there in the shade.”
“There is a certain fragrance coming out that door, isn’t there?” Velvet agreed.
“You, too, Eriond,” Polgara said firmly. “There’s no need for you to start picking up bad habits this early in life.” She rode over toward a grove of tall fir trees some distance away from the tavern and dismounted in the shade. Durnik and Toth exchanged a quick glance, then joined her there with Velvet, Ce’Nedra, and Eriond.
Sadi started to dismount in front of the tavern. Then he sniffed once and gagged slightly. “This is not my sort of place, gentlemen,” he said. “I think I’ll wait outside as well. Besides, it’s Zith’s feeding time.”
“Suit yourself,” Belgarath shrugged, dismounting and leading the way toward the building. They stepped over the snoring Karand on the stoop and went on inside. “Split up and spread out,” the old man muttered. “Circulate and talk to as many as you can.” He looked at Silk. “We’re not here to make a career out of this,” he cautioned.
“Trust me,” Silk said, moving away.
Garion stood just inside the door, blinking to let his eyes adjust to the dimness. The tavern showed no signs of ever having been cleaned. The floor was covered with moldy straw that reeked of spilled beer, and scraps of rotting food lay in heaps in the corners. A crudely built fireplace smoked at the far end, adding its fumes to the generally unpleasant odor of the place. The tables consisted of rough-hewn planks laid on trellises, and the benches were half logs with sticks drilled into their undersides for legs. Garion saw Beldin talking with several Karands over in one corner and he started over to join him.
As he passed one of the tables, his foot came down on something soft. There was a protesting squeal and a sudden scramble of hoofed feet.
“Don’t step on my pig,” the bleary-eyed old Karand sitting at the table said belligerently. “I don’t step on your pig, do I?” He pronounced it “peg,” and Garion had a little trouble sorting out his dialect.
“Watch yer fate,” the Karand said ominously.
“Fate?” Garion shrank back from that word just a bit.
“Fate. Them thangs you got on the end of yer laigs.”
“Oh. Feet.”
“That’s what I just said—fate.”
“Sorry,” Garion apologized. “I didn’t quite understand.”
“That’s the trouble with you outlanders. You can’t even understand the language when she’s spoke to you plain as day.”
“Why don’t we have a tankard of ale?” Garion suggested. “I’ll apologize to your pig just as soon as he comes back.”
The Karand squinted at him suspiciously. The old man was bearded and he wore clothing made of poorly tanned furs. He wore a hat made from the whole skin of a badger— with the legs and tail still attached. He was very dirty, and Garion could clearly see the fleas peeking out of his beard.
“I’m buying,” Garion offered, sitting down across the table from the pig’s owner.
The old Karand’s face brightened noticeably.
They had a couple of tankards of ale together. Garion noticed that the stuff had a raw, green flavor to it, as if it had been dipped from the vat a week or so too soon. His host, however, smacked his lips and rolled his eyes as if this were the finest brew in the world. Something cold and wet touched Garion’s hand, and he jerked it away. He looked down into a pair of earnest blue eyes fenced in by bristly white eyelashes. The pig had recently been to the wallow and he carried a powerful odor with him.
The old Karand chortled. “That’s just my peg,” he said. “He’s a good-natured young peg, and he don’t hold no grudges.” The fur-clad fellow blinked owlishly. “He’s a orphan, y’know.”
“Oh?”
“His ma made real good bacon, though.” The old man snuffled and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Sometimes I miss her real bad,” he admitted. He squinted at Garion. “Say, that’s a mighty big knife you got there.”
“Yes,” Garion agreed. He absently scratched the half-grown pig’s ears, and the animal closed his eyes in bliss, laid his head in Garion’s lap, and grunted contentedly.
“We were coming down the trail out of the mountains,” Garion said, “and we saw a lot of smoke out on the plain. Is there some kind of trouble out there?”
“The worst kinda trouble there is, friend,” the old man said seriously. He squinted at Garion again. “You’re not one of them Mal-or-eens, are you?”
“No,” Garion assured him, “not Mallorean. I come from farther west,”
“I didn’t know there was anythin’ to the west of the Mal-or-eens. Anyhow, there’s whole bunches of people down there on the plains havin’ some kind of a argument about religion.”
“Religion?”
“I don’t hold much with it myself,” the Karand admitted. “There’s them as do and them as don’t, and I’m one of them as don’t. Let the Gods take care of theirselves, I say. I’ll take care of me and mine, and we’re quits on the whole business.”
“Seems like a good way,” Garion said carefully.
“Glad you see it like that. Anyhow, there’s this Grolim named Zandramas down in Darsheeva. This Zandramas, she come up into Voresebo and started talkin’ about this here new God of Angarak—Torak bein’ dead an’ all, y’know. Now, I’m just about as interested in all that as my peg is. He’s a smart peg and he knows when people is talkin’ nonsense.”
Garion patted the pig’s muddy flank, and the plump little animal made an ecstatic sound. “Good pig,” Garion agreed. “Peg, that is.”
“I’m fond of him. He’s warm and good to snuggle up against on a cold night—and he don’t hardly snore none at all. Well, sir, this Zandramas, she come up here and started preachin’ and yellin’ and I don’t know what all. The Grolims all gives out a moan and falls down on their faces. Then, a while back, a whole new bunch of Grolims comes over the mountains, and they says that this Zandramas is dead wrong. They says that there’s gonna be a new God over Angarak, right enough, but that this Zandramas don’t have the straight of it. That’s what all the smoke down there on the plains is about. Both sides is a-burnin’ and a-killin’ and a-preachin’ about their idea of who the new God’s gonna be. I’m not gonna have anythin’ to do with either side. Me and my peg are gonna go back up in the mountains and let them folks kill each other. When they get it all sorted out, we’ll come back and nod at whichever altar comes out on top as we go by.”