“The Imperial Dungeon is quite secure, Belgarion,” Varana said a bit stiffly.
“Not that secure, Varana.” Then Garion smiled briefly, remembering the Emperor’s stubborn convictions about such things. “Let’s just say that Naradas has some out-of-the-ordinary resources available to him. It’s one of those things that makes you uncomfortable to talk about.”
“Oh,” Varana said distastefully, “that.” Garion nodded. “It might be better in the long run just to have your people keep an eye on him. If he doesn’t know that we’re aware that he’s here, he might lead us to others— or at least to certain information. Harakan’s been seen here in Tolnedra, too, I understand, and I’d like to find out if there’s some kind of connection between the two of them.” Varana smiled. “Your life is a great deal more complicated than mine, Belgarion,” he said. “I only have one reality to deal with.”
Garion gave a wry shrug. “It helps to fill up my spare time,” he replied.
There was a light tap on the door, and Lord Morin slowly shuffled into the room. “I’m sorry to disturb your Majesties, but there’s some unsettling news from the city.”
“Oh?” Varana said. “What’s been happening, Morin?”
“Someone’s been killing members of the Honeth family— very quietly, but very efficiently. Quite a few have died in the last two nights.”
“Poison?”
“No, your Majesty. This assassin is more direct. He smothered a few with their own pillows night before last, and there was one nasty fall. At first the deaths appeared to die of natural causes. Last night, though, he started using a knife.” Morin shook his head disapprovingly. “Messy,” he sniffed. “Very messy.”
Varana frowned. “I thought that all the old feuds had set-tied down. Do you think it might be the Horbites? They hold grudges forever sometimes.”
“No one seems to know, your Majesty. The Honeths are terrified. They’re either fleeing the city or turning their houses into forts.”
Varana smiled. “I think I can live with the discomfort of the Honeth family. Did this fellow leave any kind of trademark? Can we identify him as a known assassin?”
“We haven’t a clue, your Majesty. Should I put guards around the houses of the Honeths—the ones who are left?”
“They have their own soldiers.” Varana shrugged. “But put out some inquiries and let this fellow know that I’d like to have a little talk with him.”
“Are you going to arrest him?” Garion asked.
“Oh, I don’t know that I want to go that far. I just want to find out who he is and suggest to him that he ought to follow the rules a little more closely, that’s all. I wonder who he could possibly be.”
Garion, however, had a few private suspicions about the matter.
The Erastide festivities were in full swing in Tol Honeth, and the revelers, many far gone in drink, lurched and staggered from party to party as the great families vied with one another in a vulgar display of ostentatious wealth. The huge mansions of the rich and powerful were festooned with gaily hued buntings and hung with colored lanterns. Fortunes were spent on lavish banquets, and the entertainments provided often exceeded the bounds of good taste. Although the celebrations at the palace were more restrained, Emperor Varana nonetheless felt obliged to extend his hospitality to many people he privately loathed.
The event which had been long in the planning for that particular evening was a state banquet to be followed by a grand ball. “And you two will be my guests of honor,” Varana firmly told Garion and Ce’Nedra. “If I have to endure this, then so do you.”
“I’d really rather not, uncle,” Ce’Nedra told him with a sad little smile. “I’m not much in the mood for festivities just now.”
“You can’t just turn off your life, Ce’Nedra,” he said gently. “A party—even one of the stuffy ones here in the palace—might help to divert your mind from your tragic circumstances.” He gave her a shrewd look. “Besides,” he added, “if you don’t attend, the Honeths, Horbites, and Vor-dues will all be smirking up their sleeves about your absence.”
Ce’Nedra’s head came up quickly, and her eyes took on a flinty look. “That’s true, isn’t it?” she replied. “Of course, I really don’t have a thing to wear.”
“There are whole closets filled with your gowns in the imperial apartments, Ce’Nedra,” he reminded her.
“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten those. All right, uncle, I’ll be happy to attend.”
And so it was that Ce’Nedra, dressed in a creamy white velvet gown and with a jeweled coronet nestling among her flaming curls, entered the ballroom that evening on the arm of her husband, the King of Riva. Garion, dressed in a borrowed blue doublet that was noticeably tight across the shoulders, approached the entire affair with a great lack of enthusiasm. As a visiting head of state, he was obliged to stand for an hour or so in the reception line in the grand ballroom, murmuring empty responses to the pleasantries offered by assorted Horbites, Vordues, Ranites, and Borunes—and their often giddy wives. The Honeths, however, were conspicuous by their absence.
Toward the end of that interminable ceremony, Javelin’s honey-blond niece, the Margravine Liselle, dressed in a spectacular gown of lavender brocade, came past on the arm of Prince Khaldon. “Courage, your Majesty,” she murmured as she curtsied to Garion. “Not even this can last forever—though it might seem like it.”
“Thanks, Liseile,” he replied dryly.
After the reception line had wound to its tedious conclusion, Garion circulated politely among the other guests, enduring the endlessly repeated comment: “It never snows in Tol Honeth.”
At the far end of the candlelit ballroom, a group of Arendish musicians sawed and plucked and tootled their way through a repertoire of holiday songs that were common to all the Kingdoms of the West. Their lutes, violas, harps, flutes, and oboes provided a largely unheard background to the chattering of the Emperor’s guests.
“I had engaged Madame Aldima to entertain us this evening,” Varana was saying to a small cluster of Horbites. “Her singing was to have been the high point of the festivities. Unfortunately, the change in the weather has made her fearful of coming out of her house. She’s most protective of her voice, I understand.”
“And well she should be,” a Ranite lady standing just behind Garion murmured to her companion. “It wasn’t much of a voice to begin with, and time hasn’t been kind to it— all those years Aldima spent singing in taverns, no doubt.”
“It hardly seems like Erastide without singing,” Varana continued. “Perhaps we might persuade one of these lovely ladies to grace us with a song or two.”
A stout Borune lady of middle years quickly responded to the Emperor’s suggestion, joining with the orchestra in a rendition of an old favorite delivered in a warbling soprano voice that struggled painfully to reach the higher registers. When she had finished and stood red-faced and gasping, the Emperor’s guests responded to her screeching with polite applause which lasted for almost five seconds. Then they returned to their inane chatter.
And then the musicians struck up an Arendish air so old that its origins were lost in the mists of antiquity. Like most Arendish songs, it was of a melancholy turn, beginning in a minor key with an intricate waterfall of notes from the lute. As the deep-toned viola entered with the main theme, a rich contralto voice joined in. Gradually, the conversations died out as that voice poignantly touched the guests into silence. Garion was startled. Standing not far from the orchestra, the ‘ Margravine Liselle had lifted her head in song. Her voice f was marvelous. It had a dark, thrilling timbre and was as “ smooth as honey. The other guests drew back from her in profound respect for that glorious voice, leaving her standing quite alone in a golden circle of candlelight. And then, to Garion’s astonishment, Ce’Nedra stepped into that candlelight to join the lavender-gowned Drasnian girl. As the flute .. picked up the counter-harmony, the tiny Rivan Queen raised her sad little face and joined her voice with that of the Margravine. Effortlessly, her clear voice rose with that of the flute, so perfectly matching its tone and color that one could not separate exactly the voice of the instrument from hers. And yet, there was a sadness bordering on heartbreak in her singing, a sorrow that brought a lump to Garion’s throat and tears to his eyes. Despite the festivities around her, it was clearly evident that Ce’Nedra still nursed her abiding anguish deep in her heart, and no gaiety nor entertainment could lessen her suffering.
As the song drew to its conclusion, the applause was thunderous. “More!” they shouted. “More!”
Encouraged by the ovation, the musicians returned to the beginning of that same ancient air. Once again the lute spilled out its heart in that rippling cascade, but this time as the viola led Liselle into the main theme, yet a third voice joined in—a voice Garion knew so well that he did not even have to look to see who was singing.