‘The baron summed it up fairly well, then, your Majesty,’ I replied
with a formal curtsey. ‘I placed the funds in the royal treasury some
years back. I need some money right now, so I’m here to withdraw
part of the account. Why don’t you show his Majesty the entry in
the account book, Baron Stilnan?’ I suggested, ‘and the attached
document? It might save some time.’
Falben read the relevant material quickly. ‘You claim to be the
Lady Polgara?’ he demanded of me, his tone suspicious.
‘She doesn’t claim to be, your Majesty,’ Geran told him. ‘She is
Lady Polgara.’
‘My nephew, Geran,’ I introduced the young man.
‘I’ll need something more than just his word, my Lady,’ Falben
said- ‘There are all sorts of swindlers running around these days.’
‘Oh, very well,’ I sighed. Then I elevated the King of Sendaria.
I’ve found that to be the fastest way to prove my identity to
skeptics.
immediately brings people around to my way of thinking.
‘Satisfied?’ I asked the startled monarch. He stood frozen in mid-air, his
eyes wide with astonishment. He nodded violently, and I gently
lowered him to the floor. ‘I’m sorry, your Majesty,’ I apologized.
‘We’re both busy, and that usually settles these tiresome arguments
in the shortest possible time.’
‘I can see why,’ Falben said in a strained tone of voice. Then he
went to Stilnan’s desk and looked at the open account book. ‘Did
you want to withdraw the entire balance, Lady Polgara?’ he asked,
sounding slightly worried.
‘How much is there? I haven’t been keeping track of it.’
‘The last entry shows something over a half million nobles, my
Lady.’
‘The noble’s a one-ounce gold coin?’
He nodded.
‘I don’t think it’d be a good idea for me to leave here with fifteen
tons of gold in my pocket, do you?’
He laughed weakly. ‘You could do it if you wanted to, Lady
Polgara. I’ve heard stories about you.’
‘Exaggerations, your Majesty. I think five hundred nobles should
cover my current expenses.’
‘Fetch it, Stilnan,’ the king commanded. ‘I have a confession to
make, Lady Polgara.’
‘Honest confession is good for the soul, your Majesty.’
‘I’m ashamed to admit that your account’s a little encumbered.
We’ve occasionally used it as security for temporary loans when
our tax revenues fell a little short of our current needs.’
‘That’s a legitimate use for dormant money, your Majesty,’ I
forgave him.
Might I ask the source of this fortune?’
‘Rents, your Majesty. My duchy was extensive and I’ve been
renting out farmsteads for quite a long time now. I don’t really charge
that much rent, but it does seem to be piling up, doesn’t it? Maybe
I’ll buy something with it someday – Tol Honeth, perhaps.’
He laughed. ‘It’s probably for sale, Lady Polgara. Everything the
Tolnedrans own is for sale.’
Baron Stilnan returned with two large canvas bags of jingling
coins. He insisted that I count the money, and then he entered the
transaction in the musty old account book.
‘Oh, one last thing, your Majesty,’ I said. ‘I’d rather that word of
this visit didn’t get noised about.’
‘Which visit was that, Lady Polgara? I have a terrible memory.
I laughed, curtsied, and then Geran and I left the royal palace.
‘He seemed like a nice enough fellow,’ Geran noted plodding
along beside me through the streets of Sendar with those two
jingling canvas bags.
‘I rather liked him,’ I agreed. Then I frowned. ‘When gold coins
rattle together, they make a very distinctive sound, don’t they? I
think I’d better devise some way to keep them quiet. We don’t want
to attract attention.’
‘Are we going home now, Aunt Pol?’
‘No, Geran. Actually, we’re going to Muros.’
‘Muros? Whatever for?’
‘I haven’t raised you to be a hermit, Geran. It’s time for you to
get out in the world and meet people.’
‘Who do I need to meet?’ he asked curiously.
‘I thought it might be nice if you and your wife met each other
before the wedding,’ I replied. ‘That’s up to you, though. If you
really like surprises, we can go back home and I’ll just send for the
lucky girl.’
He blushed furiously and let the matter drop.
Muros hasn’t changed very much over the centuries. It is – and
probably always will be – a dusty town permeated with the strong
odor of the stockyards. For obvious reasons, there’s a lot of money
in Muros. The vast Algar cattle herds have been called ‘gold on the
hoof’, and the town literally seethes with cattle-buyers from all the
kingdoms of the west. Geran and I took lodgings in a sedate inn on
a quiet street, and I went looking for a suitable house for us to
occupy on a more permanent basis. I’ve spent a lot of time over the
years shopping for real estate, and I’ve developed a kind of
instinctive reaction that saves time in the long run. When I see the right
house, I know immediately that it’s the one I want. This time, the
house was a well-built place on a quiet back street. It didn’t come
up to the standards of my town house in Vo Wacune nor my country
house on Lake Erat, but I didn’t really want it to. Geran and I would
be posing as members of the minor nobility, and the house was
suitable for a baroness who was well off, but not exactly rolling in
money. It fit our fictional status quite well.
The house was owned by a wiry little Drasnian name Khalon,
and he and I haggled a bit before we concluded the transaction.
The poor fellow got himself soundly beaten when I reverted to
the Drasnian Secret Language to conduct our negotiations. He was
ashamed to admit that he was out of practice, so he accepted a
ridiculously low offer without actually translating my gesture into
a real number. Then his pride prevented him from confessing that
he’d misunderstood. In short, I neatly skinned him and hung his
hide on a fence.
‘I think I’ve been had,’ Khalon muttered after we’d sealed the
transaction with a handshake.
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘you have. Why didn’t you ask for clarification?’
‘I’d have sooner died. You won’t noise this about, will you?’
‘Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. Now, might I ask a favor
of you?’
‘You want to swindle me out of my furniture, too?’
‘No. I’ll furnish my house in my own way. I need an introduction
to a man named Hattan.’
‘The Algar cattle-buyer?’
‘That’s him. Do you know him?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s well-known – and hated – here in Muros.’
‘Hated?’
‘The Tolnedrans absolutely despise him. He knows all the clan
chiefs of Algaria by their first names, so he always gets the first pick
out of the Algar herds. He skims the cream off the top of every herd
that comes over the mountains. Are you thinking of going into the
cattle business, Baroness?’
‘No, Khalon, not really. It has to do with something else.
‘I’ll be busy packing things – and selling off my furniture – for a few
days. Then I’ll take you on around to Hattan’s place of business and
introduce you.’
‘Are you going back to Boktor, Khalan?’
‘No, Baroness. I don’t like Drasnian winters. I’m getting tired of
cows. so I’m moving to Camaar. I’ve heard that there’s profit to be
made in the spice-trade, and spices smell much nicer than cows.’
About a week later, Khalon introduced me to Hattan. At my
request, he presented me to the tall, lean man dressed in horse-hide
as Baroness Pelera. I’ve used assorted pseudonyms over the years,
since my real name’s probably engraved on the mind of every Murgo
who comes west. After a goodly number of cooperative mothers had
,named their daughters after the legendary ‘Polgara the Sorceress’,
however, that cumbersome subterfuge became unnecessary, and the
simplified ‘Pol’ was usually enough to conceal my identity.
Despite the fact that he’d lived in Sendaria for years, Hattan still
wore horse-hide clothing and shaved his head except for the single
flowing scalp-lock hanging down his back. His success as a
cattle buyer rested on his Algar heritage, so he made a point of dressing
,appropriately.
Hattan and I took to each other immediately. I’ve always liked
Algars, since I grew up in their backyard. Hattan didn’t talk a lot
and then only in a very quiet voice. When you spend most of your
life with cows, you learn not to startle them with loud noises
unless you enjoy rounding them up again.
Khalon had grossly understated the feelings other cattle-buyers
in Muros had for Hattan. Hatred only began to describe it. His
intimate contacts with the Algarian clan chiefs gave him an
enormous advantage over the Tolnedrans in particular. Algars almost
automatically dislike Tolnedrans anyway, so the Algarian clan chiefs
made a habit of culling through their herds and reserving the finest