Somewhat later that gloomy morning, after Silk and Belgarath had returned aft to seek refuge from the weather in one of the cabins and also, Garion suspected, for a touch of something to ward off the chill, Urgit sat miserably on a rain-wet bench with his head in his hands while Garion moodily paced the deck not far away. “Belgarion,” the Murgo King said plaintively, “do you have to stamp your feet so hard?”
Garion gave him a quick, amused smile. “Silk really should have warned you about this,” he said.
“Why do people call him Silk?”
“It’s a nickname he picked up from his colleagues in Drasnian Intelligence.”
“Why would a member of the Drasnian royal family want to be a spy?”
“It’s their national industry.”
“Is he really any good at it?”
“He’s just about the best there is.”
Urgit’s face had definitely grown green. “This is dreadful,” he groaned. “I can’t be sure if it’s the drink or seasickness. I wonder if I’d feel better if I stuck my head in a bucket of water.”
“Only if you held it down long enough.”
“That’s a thought.” Urgit laid his head back on the rail to let the rain drizzle into his face. “Belgarion,” he said finally, “what am I doing wrong?”
“You drank a little too much.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Where am I making my mistakes—as a king, I mean?”
Garion looked at him. The little man was obviously sincere, and the sympathy for him which had welled up back in Rak Urga rose again. Garion finally admitted to himself that he liked this man. He drew in a deep breath and sat down beside the suffering Urgit. “You know part of it already,” he said. “You let people bully you.”
“It’s because I’m afraid, Belgarion. When I was a boy, I let them bully me because it kept them from killing me. I guess it just got to be a habit.”
“Everybody’s afraid.”
“You aren’t. You faced Torak at Cthol Mishrak, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t altogether my idea—and believe me, you can’t even begin to guess how frightened I was when I was on my way there for that meeting.”
“You?”
“Oh, yes. You’re beginning to get some control over that problem, though. You handled that general—Kradak, wasn’t it?—fairly well back at the Drojim. Just keep remembering that you’re the king, and that you’re the one who gives the orders.”
“I can try, I guess. What else am I doing wrong?”
Garion thought about it. “You’re trying to do it all yourself,” he replied finally. “Nobody can do that. There are just too many details for one man to keep up with. You need help—good, honest help.”
“Where am I going to find good help in Cthol Murgos? Whom can I trust?”
“You trust Oskatat, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.”
“That’s a start, then. You see, Urgit, what’s happening is that you’ve got people in Rak Urga who are making decisions that you should, be making. They’re taking it upon themselves to do that because you’ve been too afraid or too busy with other things to assert your authority.”
“You’re being inconsistent, Belgarion. First you say that I should get some people to help me, then you turn around and tell me that I shouldn’t let other people make my decisions.”
“You weren’t listening. The people who are making your decisions for you aren’t the people you might have chosen.
They’ve just stepped in on their own. In a lot of cases, you probably don’t even know who they are. That simply won’t work. You have to choose your people rather carefully. Their first qualification has to be ability. Right behind that comes personal loyalty to you—and to your mother.”
“Nobody’s loyal to me, Belgarion. My subjects despise me.”
“You might be surprised. I don’t think there’s any question about Oskatat’s loyalty—or his ability. That’s probably a good place to start. Let him pick your administrators. They’ll start out by being loyal to him, but in time they’ll come to respect you as well.”
“I hadn’t even considered that. Do you think it might work?”
“It won’t hurt to try. To be perfectly honest with you, my friend, you’ve made a mess of things. It’s going to take you a while to straighten them out, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”
“You’ve given me quite a bit to think about, Belgarion.” Urgit shivered and looked around. “It’s really miserable out here,” he said. “Where did Kheldar go?”
“Back inside. I think he’s trying to get well.”
“You mean that there’s actually something that will cure this?”
“Some Alorns recommend some more of what made you sick in the first place.”
Urgit’s face went pale. “More?” he said in a horrified voice. “How can they?”
“Alorns are notoriously brave people.”
Urgit’s eyes grew suspicious. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Wouldn’t that just make me feel exactly the same way tomorrow morning?”
“Probably, yes. That could explain why Alorns are usually so foul-tempered when they first get up.”
“That’s stupid, Belgarion.”
“I know. Murgos don’t have an absolute monopoly on stupidity.” Garion looked at the shivering man. “I think you’d better go inside, Urgit,” he advised. “You don’t want a chill, on top of all your other problems.”
The rain let up by late afternoon. The Murgo captain looked up at the still-threatening sky and then at the cliffs and the jagged reefs jutting out of the turbulent water and prudently ordered his crew to lower the sails and drop the anchor.
Durnik and Toth rather regretfully rolled up their stout fishing lines and stood looking proudly at the dozen or so gleaming silver fish lying on the deck at their feet.
Garion drifted back to where they stood and looked admiringly at their catch. “Not bad,” he said.
Durnik carefully measured the biggest fish with his hands. “About three feet,” he said, “but they’re minnows compared to the big one that got away.”
“It always seems to work out that way,” Garion said. “Oh,” he added, “one thing, Durnik. I’d clean them before I showed them to Aunt Pol. You know how she feels about that.”
Durnik sighed. “You’re probably right,” he agreed.
That evening, after they had all dined on some of the catch, they sat around the table in the aft cabin conversing idly.
“Do you think Agachak’s caught up with Harakan yet?” Durnik asked Belgarath.
“I sort of doubt it,” the old man replied. “Harakan’s tricky. If Beldin couldn’t catch him, I don’t think Agachak’s going to have much luck either.”
“Lady Polgara,” Sadi suddenly protested in a tone of outrage, “make her stop that.”
“What’s that, Sadi?”
“The Margravine Liselle. She’s subverting my snake.”
Velvet, with a mysterious little smile on her face, was delicately feeding Zith fish eggs taken from one of the large fish Durnik and Toth had caught. The little green snake was purring contentedly and was half-raised in anticipation of the next morsel.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The wind came up during the night, a raw, gusty wind, smelling strongly of dusty old ice, and the drizzle which had fallen for most of the previous day turned to sleet that rattled in the rigging and clattered on the deck like handfuls of pebbles. As usual, Garion rose early and tiptoed on unshod feet from the tiny cabin he shared with his sleeping wife. He made his way down the dark companionway past the doors to the cabins where the others slept and entered the aft cabin. He stood for a time at the windows running across the stem of the ship, looking out at the wind-tossed waves and listening to the slow creak of the tiller post running down through the center of the cabin to the rudder that probed the dark water beneath the stern.
As he sat down to put on his boots, the door opened and Durnik came in, brushing the ice pellets of the sleet squall chattering on the decks from the folds of his cloak. “It’s going to be slow going for a while, I’m afraid,” he said to Garion. “The wind’s swung around and it’s coming directly up out of the south. We’re running right straight into it. The sailors are breaking out the oars.”
“Could you get any idea of how far it is to the tip of the peninsula?” Garion asked, standing up and stamping his feet to settle his boots into place.
“I talked with the captain a bit. From what he said, it’s only a few leagues. There’s a cluster of islands that runs off the south end of it, though, and he wants to let this blow over before he tries to thread his way through the passage. He’s not much of a sailor, and this isn’t much of a boat, so I guess he’s a little timid.”
Garion leaned forward, put his hands on the sill of one of the stern windows and looked out again at the stormy sea. “This could blow for a week,” he observed. He turned to look at his friend. “Has our captain recovered his composure at all?” he asked. “He was a little wild-eyed when we sailed out of RakUrga.”