“Belgarath’s wife pointed the way.” Greldik shrugged. “That’s a remarkable woman, do you know that?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you know that not one man in my whole crew, took a single drink while we were at sea? Not even me. For some reason, we just didn’t want any.”
‘ * My grandmother has strong prejudices. Will you be all right here? I want to go up and have a chat with her.”
“That’s all right, Garion.” Greldik grinned, patting the nearly full ale keg affectionately. “I’ll be just fine.” Garion went upstairs to the royal apartments. The tawny-haired woman sat by the fire, idly stroking the young wolf’s ears. Ce’Nedra was sprawled rather awkwardly on a divan.
“Ah, there you are, Garion,” Poledra said. She sniffed the air rather delicately. “I notice you’ve been drinking.” Her tone was disapproving.
“I had one tankard with Greldik.”
* ‘Would you please sit over there on the other side of the room then? One’s sense of smell is quite acute, and the odor of ale turns one’s stomach.”
“Is that why you disapprove of drinking?”
“Of course. What other reason could there be?” 1 “I think Aunt Pol disapproves on some sort of moral grounds.”
“Polgara has some obscure prejudices. Now then,” she went on seriously. “My daughter is in no condition to travel just now, so I’m here to deliver Ce’Nedra’s baby. Pol gave me all sorts of instructions, most of which I intend to ignore. Giving birth is a natural process, and the less interference the better. When it starts, I want you to take Geran and this young wolf here and go to the extreme far end of the Citadel. I’ll send for you when it’s all over.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“He’s a nice boy,” Poledra said to the Rivan Queen.
“I rather like him.”
“I certainly hope so. All right, then, Garion, just as soon as the baby’s born and we’re sure everything’s all right, you and I are going to return to the Vale. Polgara’s a few weeks behind Ce’Nedra, but we really don’t have too much time to waste. Pol wants you to be there when she gives birth.”
“You have to go, Garion,” Ce’Nedra said. “I only wish / could.”
Garion was a bit dubious about leaving his wife so soon after she was delivered, but he definitely did want to be in the Vale when Aunt Pol had her baby.
It was three nights later. Garion was having a splendid dream that involved riding down a long, grassy hill with Eriond. “Garion,” Ce’Nedra said, nudging him in the ribs. “Yes, deaf?” He was still about half asleep.
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“I think you’d better go get your grandmother.”
He was fully awake immediately. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve been through this before, dear,” she told him.
He rolled quickly out of bed.
“Kiss me before you go,” she told him.
He did that.
“And don’t forget to take Geran and the puppy when you go off to the other end of the building. Put Geran back to bed when you get there.”
“Of course.”
A strange expression came over her face. ‘ ‘I think you’d better hurry, Garion,” she suggested.
Garion bolted.
It was nearly dawn when the Queen of Riva was delivered of a baby girl. The infant had a short crop of deep-red hair and green eyes. As it had for so many centuries, the Dryad strain bred true. Poledra carried the blanket-wrapped baby through the silent halls of the Citadel to the rooms where Garion sat before a fire and Geran and the wolf slept in a tangle of arms, legs, and paws on a divan.
“Is Ce’Nedra all right?” Garion asked, coming to his feet.
“She’s fine,” his grandmother assured him, “a little tired is all. It was a fairly easy delivery.”
Garion heaved a sigh of relief, then turned back the corner of the blanket to look at the small face of his daughter. “She looks like her mother,” he said. People the world over always make that first observation, pointing out the similarities of a newborn to this parent or that as if such resemblances were somehow remarkable. Garion gently took the baby in his arms and looked into that tiny red face. The baby looked back at him, her green-eyed gaze.unwavering. It was a familiar gaze. “Good morning, Beldaran,” Garion said softly. He had made that decision quite some time ago. There would be other daughters, and they would be named after a fair number of female relatives on both sides of the family, but it somehow seemed important that his first daughter should be named for Aunt Pol’s blond twin sister, a woman who, though Garion had seen only her image and then only once, was still somehow central to all their lives.
“Thank you, Garion,” Poledra said simply.
“It seems appropriate somehow,” Garion told her.
Prince Geran was not too impressed with his baby sister, but boys seldom are. “Isn’t she awfully little?” he asked when his father woke him to introduce them. •
EPILOGUE
367
“It’s the nature of babies to be little. She’ll grow.”
“Good.” Geran looked at her gravely. Then, apparently feeling that he should say something nice about her, headded, “She has nice hair. It’s the same color as mother’s, isn’t it?”
“I noticed that myself.”
The bells of Riva pealed out that morning in celebration, and the Rivan people rejoiced, although there were some, many perhaps, who secretly wished that the royal infant might have been another boy, just for the sake of dynastic security. The Rivans, kingless for so many centuries, were nervous about that sort of thing.
Ce’Nedra, of course, was radiant. She expressed only minimal dissatisfaction with Garion’s choice of a name for then-daughter. Her Dryad heritage felt rather strongly the need for a name beginning with the traditional “X.” She worked with it a bit, however, and came up with a satisfactory solution to the problem. Garion was fairly certain that in her own mind she had inserted an “X” somewhere in Beldaran’s name. He decided mat he didn’t really want to know about it.
The Rivan Queen was young and healthy, and she recovered from her confinement quickly. She remained in bed for a few days—largely for the dramatic effect on the stream of Rivan nobility and foreign dignitaries who filed through the royal bedchamber to view the tiny queen and the even tinier princess.
After a few days, Poledra spoke with Garion. “That more or less takes care of business here,” she said,’ ‘and we really should get started back to th$ Vale. Polgara’s time is coming closer, you know.”
Garion nodded. “I asked Greldik to stay,” he told her. “He’ll get us back to Sendaria faster than anybody else can.”
“He’s a very undependable man, you know.”
“Aunt Pol said exactly’the same thing. He’s still the finest sailor in the world. I’ll make arrangements to have horses put on board his ship.”
“No,” she said shortly. “We’re in a hurry, Garion. Horses would only slow us down.”
“You want to run all the way from the coast of Sendaria to the Vale?” he asked her, a little startled.
“It’s not really all that far, Garion.” She smiled.
“What about supplies?”
She gave him an amused look, and he suddenly felt very foolish.
Garion’s good-byes to his family were emotional, though
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brief. “Be sure to dress warmly,” Ce’Nedra instructed. “It’s winter, you know.”
He decided not to tell her exactly how he and his grandmother intended to travel.
“Oh,” she said, handing him a parchment sheet, “give this to Aunt Pol.”
Garion looked at the sheet. It was a rather fair artist’s sketch, in color, of his wife and daughter.
“It’s quite good, isn’t it?” Ce’Nedra said.
“Very good,” he agreed.
“You’d better run along now,” she said. “If you stay much longer, I won’t let you go at all.”
“Keep warm, Ce’Nedra,” he said, “and look after the children.”
“Naturally. I love you, your Majesty.”
“I love you, too, your Majesty.” He kissed her and his son and daughter and quietly left the room.
The weather at sea ^fejjlustery, but the militantly impetuous Greldik paid almost no atpntion to weather, no matter how foul. His patched and decidedly scruffy-looking ship ran before the wind across a stormy sea under far more sail than even a marginally prudent sea captain would have crowded onto his masts, and two days later, they reached’the coast of Sendaria.
“Any empty beach will do, Greldik,” Garion told him. “We’re in sort of a hurry, and if we stop at Sendar, Fulrach and Layla will tie us up with congratulations and banquets.”
“How do you propose to get off a beach without horses?” Greldik asked bluntly.
“There are ways,” Garion told him.
“More of that sort of thing?” Greldik said with a certain distaste.
Garion nodded.
“That’s unnatural, you know.”
“I come from an unnatural sort of family.”
Greldik grunted disapprovingly and ran his ship in close to a windswept beach bordered on its upper edge with die rank grass of a salt flat. “Does this one suit you?” he asked.