Silk sighed. “He didn’t have too much fun after my mother’s illness, though. That put an end to all the wandering and adventures.”
“What kind of illness was it?”
“A pestilence that breaks out in Drasnia from time to time. It disfigures its victims horribly. My mother was blinded by its effects, fortunately.”
“Fortunately?”
“She couldn’t look into a mirror. Our father stayed by her side for the rest of his life and never once gave any hint about what he saw whenever he looked at her.” Silk’s face was bleak, and his jaws were tightly clenched together. “It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen any man do—and it was all the worse because it went on and on and on until the day he died.” He looked away quickly. “Do you suppose we could talk about something else?”
“I’m sorry, Kheldar,” Urgit said sympathetically. “I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
“What was it like growing up in Rak Goska?” Silk asked after a moment.
“Grim,” Urgit replied. “Taur Urgas had begun to show signs of his madness much earlier than was usual in the Urga family, and there were all kinds of rituals we had to observe.”
“I’ve seen some of them.”
“Not just the ones in the Temple, Kheldar—although there were plenty of those as well. I’m talking about his personal peculiarities. No one was ever supposed to stand to his right, and it was worth a man’s life to let his shadow fall on the royal person. My brothers and I were taken from our mothers at the age of seven and set to training—military exercises for the most part—involving a great deal of grunting and sweating. Lapses of any kind were punished with flogging—usually at the supper table.”
“That might tend to cool one’s appetite.”
“It does indeed. I don’t even eat supper any more—too many unpleasant memories. My brothers and I all started plotting against each other very early. Taur Urgas had many wives and whole platoons of children. Since the crown falls to the eldest surviving son, we all schemed against our older brothers and tried to protect ourselves against the plots of the younger ones. One charming little fellow ran a knife into one of the others when he was nine.”
“Precocious,” Silk murmured.
“Oh, he was indeed. Taur Urgas was delighted, of course. For a time, the little back-stabber was his favorite. That made me and my older brothers quite nervous, since it was entirely possible that our insane sire might have seen fit to have us all strangled to make room for the little monster, so we took steps.”
“Oh?”
“We caught him alone in the upper floors of the palace one day and threw him out a window.” Urgit looked somberly out over the long swells sweeping in off the Great Western Sea. “From the day we were taken from our mothers, we lived a life of constant fear and senseless brutality. We were supposed to be perfect Murgos—strong, brave, insanely loyal, and absolutely dedicated to Torak. Each of us had a Grolim for a tutor, and we had to listen to hours of gibberish about the God of Angarak every day. It wasn’t .what you might call a pleasant childhood.”
“Taur Urgas never showed any kind of affection?”
“Not to me, he didn’t. I was always the smallest, and he had a great deal of contempt for me. Murgos are supposed to be big and muscular. Even after I’d managed to work my way up to the point where I was heir apparent, he never had a civil word for me and he encouraged my younger brothers to try to murder me.”
“How did you manage to survive?”
“By my wits—and by using a key I managed to steal.”
“A key?”
“To the palace strong room. You’d be amazed at how much help a man with unlimited funds at his command can get—even in Cthol Murgos.”
Silk shivered. “It’s getting definitely chilly out here on deck,” he said. “Why don’t we go inside and share a flagon of spiced wine?”
“I don’t drink, Kheldar.”
“You don’t?” Silk sounded amazed.
“I need to keep my wits about me. A man with his head stuck in a wine barrel can’t see someone creeping up behind him with a knife, can he?”
“You’re quite safe with me, brother.”
“I’m not safe with anyone, Kheldar—particularly not with a brother. Nothing personal, you understand—just the result of a very nervous childhood.”
“All right,” Silk said amiably. “Let’s go inside, and you can watch me drink. I’m very good at it.”
“I can imagine. You’re an Alorn, after all.”
“So are you, dear brother.” Silk laughed. “So are you. Come along, and I’ll introduce you to all the fun that goes with your heritage.”
Garion was on the verge of turning to follow them, but at that moment Belgarath came out on deck, stretching and yawning. “Is Pol up yet?” he asked Garion.
Garion shook his head. “I talked with Durnik a little while ago. He said that she’s very tired after what she did yesterday.”
Belgarath frowned slightly. “It really shouldn’t have tired her all that much,” he said. “It was spectacular, I’ll admit, but hardly exhausting.”
“I don’t think it’s that kind of exhaustion, Grandfather. Durnik said she was troubled for about half the night.”
The old man scratched at his beard. “Oh,” he said, “sometimes I lose sight of the fact that Pol’s a woman. She can’t seem to put things behind her, and sometimes her compassion gets the better of her.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad trait, Grandfather.”
“Not for a woman, perhaps.”
“I seem to remember something that happened in the fens once,” Garion told him. “Didn’t you sort of go out of your way to do something for Vordai—more or less out of compassion?”
Belgarath looked around guiltily. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to mention that.”
“You know something, Grandfather?” Garion said with a faint smile. “You’re a fraud. You pretend to be as cold as ice and as hard as a rock, but underneath you’ve got the same emotions as all the rest of us.”
“Please, Garion, don’t bandy that about too much.”
“Does it bother you being human?”
“Well, not really, but after all, I do sort of have a reputation to maintain.”
By late afternoon the coast line they had been following had grown even more jagged, and the surf boiled and thundered against the rocks. Silk and Urgit came up out of the aft companion way, and Garion noted that both were a trifle unsteady as they walked.
“Hello there, Belgarion,” Urgit said expansively. “How would you like to join us? Kheldar and I have decided that we’d like to sing for a bit.”
“Uh—thanks ail the same,” Garion replied carefully, “but I don’t sing very well.”
“That doesn’t matter, old boy. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. I might not be very good at it myself. I can’t say for sure, because I’ve never sung a note in my whole life.” He giggled suddenly. “There are a lot of things I’ve never done before, and I think it might be time I tried a few.”
Ce’Nedra and the Murgo girl, Praia, came up on deck. Instead of her customary black, Praia was dressed in a stunning gown of pale rose, and her jet-black hair was caught in an intricate coil at the nape of her neck.
“My ladies,” Urgit greeted them with a formal bow, marred only slightly by an unsteady lurch.
“Careful, old boy,” Silk said, catching him by the elbow. “I don’t want to have to fish you out of the sea.”
“You know something, Kheldar?” Urgit said, blinking owlishly. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite this good.” He looked at Ce’Nedra and the dark-haired Praia. “You know something else? Those are a couple of awfully pretty girls there. Do you think they might like to sing with us?”
“We could ask them.”
“Why don’t we?”
The pair of them descended on Ce’Nedra and her Murgo companion, imploring them outrageously to join them in song. Praia laughed as the Murgo King lurched forward and back with the roll of the ship. “I think you two are drunk,” she declared.
“Are we drunk?” Urgit asked Silk, still swaying on his feet.
“I certainly hope so,” Silk replied. “If we aren’t, we’ve wasted a great deal of very good wine.”
“I guess we’re drunk then. Now that’s been settled, what shall we sing?”
“Alorns!” Ce’Nedra sighed, rolling her eyes skyward.
It was raining the following morning when they awoke, a chill drizzle that hissed into the sea and collected to run in heavy droplets down the tarred ropes of the rigging. Polgara joined them for breakfast in the larger cabin at the extreme aft end of the companionway, though she seemed silent and withdrawn.
Velvet looked brightly around the cabin, where stoutly constructed windows instead of portholes stretched across the stern and heavy beams held up a ceiling which was actually the deck above. She looked pointedly at the two conspicuously empty chairs at the breakfast table. “What’s become of Prince Kheldar and his wayward royal brother?” she asked.