“Torak’s teeth!” Urgit swore. “Where am I going to get the troops I need?”
“Hire mercenaries,” Silk suggested without turning from the window where he stood.
“What?”
“Dip into the royal vaults and bring out some of the fabled red gold of Angarak. Send word into the Kingdoms of the West that you need good men and that you’re willing to pay them good gold. You’ll be swamped with volunteers.”
“I prefer men who fight for patriotism—or religion,” Urgit declared stiffly.
Silk turned with an amused expression. “I’ve noticed that preference in many kings,” he observed. “It doesn’t put such a strain on royal treasuries. But believe me, your Majesty, loyalty to an ideal can vary in its intensity, but loyalty to money never changes. That’s why mercenaries are better fighters.”
“You’re a cynic,” Urgit accused.
Silk shook his head. “No, your Majesty. I’m a realist.” He stepped over to Sadi and murmured something. The eunuch nodded, and the rat-faced little Drasnian quietly left the room.
Urgit raised one eyebrow inquiringly.
“He’s going to go start packing, your Majesty,” Sadi explained. “If we’re going to sail tomorrow, we need to start getting ready.”
, Urgit and Sadi talked quietly for about a quarter of an hour, and then the door at the far end of the room opened again. Polgara and the other ladies entered with the Lady Tamazin.
“Good morning, mother,” Urgit greeted her. “You slept well, I trust?”
“Quite well, thank you.” She looked critically at him. “Urgit, where’s your crown?”
“I took it off. It gives me a headache.”
“Put it back on at once.”
“What for?”
“Urgit, you don’t look very much like a king. You’re short and thin and you’ve got a face like a weasel. Murgos are not bright. If you don’t wear your crown all the time, it’s altogether possible that they’ll forget who you are. Now put it back on.”
“Yes, mother.” He picked up his crown and clapped it on his head. “How’s that?”
“It’s lopsided, dear,” she said in a calm tone so familiar that Garion gave Polgara a quick, startled look. “Now you look like a drunken sailor.”
Urgit laughed and straightened his crown.
Garion looked closely at Ce’Nedra to see if there were any traces left of the storm of weeping that had swept over her the previous day, but he saw no evidence that it might immediately return. She was engaged in a murmured conversation with the Cthan Princess, Praia, and the Murgo girl’s face clearly showed that she had already fallen under the queen’s spell.
“And you, Urgit,” Lady Tamazin said, “did you sleep well?”
“I never really sleep, mother. You know that. I decided years ago that sleeping nervously is infinitely preferable to sleeping permanently.”
Garion found himself making a difficult readjustment in his thinking. He had never liked Murgos. He had always distrusted and even feared them. King Urgit’s personality, however, was as un-Murgoish as his appearance. He was quick and volatile, and his moods swung from sardonic amusement to gloom so rapidly that Garion was quite uncertain what to expect next. He was obviously not a strong king, and Garion had been a king long enough himself to see where Urgit was making his mistakes. In spite of himself, though, Garion found that he actually liked him and felt a peculiar sympathy for him as he struggled with a job for which he was hopelessly unsuited. That, of course, created a problem. Garion did not want to like this man, and this unwanted sympathy seemed wildly out of place. He rose from his chair and withdrew to the far end of the room, making some pretense of looking out the window so that he might put himself beyond the range of the Murgo King’s urbane wit. With a kind of unbearable urgency, he wanted to be on board ship and away from this ugly Murgo city, huddled on its barren coast, and from the weak, fearful man who was not really such a bad fellow, but whom Garion knew he should regard as an enemy.
“What’s the trouble, Garion?” Polgara asked quietly, coming up behind him.
“Impatience, I guess, Aunt Pol. I want to get moving.”
“We all do, dear,” she told him, “but we have to endure this for one more day.”
“Why can’t he just leave us alone?”
“Who’s that?”
“Urgit. I’m not interested in his problems, so why does he have to sit around telling us about them all the time?”
“Because he’s lonely, Garion.”
“All kings are lonely. It comes with the crown. Most of us learn how to endure it, though. We don’t sit around and snivel about it.”
“That’s unkind, Garion,” she told him firmly, “and it’s unworthy of you.”
“Why are we all so concerned about a weak king with a clever mouth?”
“Perhaps it’s because he’s the first Murgo we’ve met in eons who shows some human qualities. Because he’s the way he is, he raises the possibility that Alorns and Murgos might someday find ways to settle then- differences without resorting to bloodshed.”
He continued to stare out the window, although a slow flush began to creep up his neck. “I’m being childish, aren’t I?”’ he admitted.
“Yes, dear, I’m afraid you are. Your prejudices are running away with you. Ordinary people can afford that. Kings Cannot. Go back to where he’s sitting, Garion, and watch him very closely. Don’t pass up this opportunity to get to (now him. The time may come when that knowledge will help you.”
“All right, Aunt Pol.” Garion sighed, squaring his shoulders resolutely.
It was almost noon when Oskatat entered the room. “Your Majesty,” he announced in his rasping voice, “Agachak, Hierarch of Rak Urga, craves audience with you.”
“Show him in, Oskatat,” Urgit replied wearily. He turned to his mother. “I think I’m going to have to find another place to hide,” he muttered. “Too many people know where to find me.”
“I have a splendid closet, Urgit,” she replied, “warm and dry and dark. You could hide in there and cover yourself with a blanket. We’ll slip food in to you from time to time.”
“Are you making fun of me, mother?”
“No, dear,” she said. “But like it or not, you’re the king. You can either be king or you can be a spoiled child. The choice is entirely up to you.”
Garion glanced guiltily at Polgara.
“Yes?” she murmured.
But he decided not to answer.
The cadaverous-looking Agachak entered and bowed perfunctorily to his king. “Your Majesty,” he said in his hollow voice.
“Dread Hierarch,” Urgit responded, his voice betraying no hint of his true feeling.
“Time is passing, your Majesty.”
“It has a way of doing that, I’ve noticed.”
“My point is that the weather is about to turn stormy. Is the ship nearly ready?”
“I expect it to sail tomorrow,” Urgit replied.
“Excellent. I shall instruct Kabach to make ready.”
“Has the Priestess Chabat regained her composure?” Urgit asked.
“Not really, your Majesty. She still keenly feels the loss of her paramour.”
“Even after she found out what his true feelings were about her? Who can ever hope to understand the workings of the female mind?”
“Chabat is not that difficult to fathom, your Majesty.” Agachak shrugged. “A disfigured woman has little chance to attract lovers, and the loss of even an insincere one is most painful. Her loss in this particular case goes a bit deeper, however. Sorchak assisted her in the performance of certain rites of magic. Without him, she will not be able to continue her efforts to summon up demons.”
Urgit shuddered. “I thought that she was a sorceress. Isn’t that enough for her? Why would she want to dabble in magic, too?”
“Chabat is not really that powerful a sorceress,” Agachak replied. “She thinks that she will have a greater advantage when she finally confronts me if she has demons to aid her.”
“Confront you? Is that what she’s planning?”
“Of course. Her occasional dallying is merely an amusement. Her central goal has always been power. In time, she will have to try to wrest mine from me.”
“If that’s the case, why did you allow her to gain so much authority in the Temple?”
“It amused me,” Agachak said with a chill smile. “I am not as repelled by ugliness as others are, and Chabat, despite her ambition—or perhaps because of it—is very efficient.”
“You knew about her affair with Sorchak. Didn’t that offend you?”
“Not really,” the dead-looking Hierarch answered. “That’s just a part of the entertainment I’m preparing for myself. Eventually, Chabat will succeed in raising a demon, and then she will challenge me. At the very instant that her triumph seems complete, I shall also raise a demon, and mine will destroy hers. Then I shall have her stripped and dragged to the Sanctum. There she will be bent backward across the altar and I myself will slowly cut out her heart. I look forward to that moment with a great deal of anticipation, and it will be all the sweeter because it will come just when she thinks she has beaten me.” His dead face had come alive with a dreadful pleasure. His eyes burned, and there were flecks of spittle in the comers of his mouth. – Urgit, however, looked faintly sick. “Grolims appear to have more exotic amusements than ordinary men.”