segment of the population. I was rather carefully taking aim at all
the young men, and I think I hit most of them. What a glorious
thing it is to be universally adored! My father’s slightly worried
expression made my morning complete.
‘Don’t let it go to your head, Polgara,’ mother’s voice cautioned me.
‘What you’re seeing on all those vacant faces isn’t love. Young males of
all species have urges that they can’t really control. In their eyes you’re
not a person; you’re an object. You don’t really want to be no more than
a thing, do you?’
The prospect of incipient thinghood put a slight damper on my
enjoyment of the moment.
traditionally, Rivans wear grey clothing. as a matter of fact, the
other western races call them ‘grey-cloaks’. Young people, however,
tend to ignore the customs of their elders. Adolescent rebellion has
been responsible for all manner of absurd costumes. The more
ridiculous a certain fashion is, the more adolescents will cling to it.
The young men crowding the edge of the wharf with yearning
eyes put me in mind of a flower garden planted by someone with
absolutely no sense of taste. There were doublets down there in
hues I didn’t even have names for, and some of those short jackets
were varicolored, and the colors clashed hideously. Each of my
worshipers, however, was absolutely convinced that his clothing
was so splendid that no girl in her right mind could possibly resist
him.
I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to burst out laughing. My
father’s concern about what he felt to be my fragile chastity was
totally inappropriate. I wasn’t going to surrender to some adolescent
whose very appearance sent me off into gales of laughter.
After the sailors had snubbed up the mooring ropes, we
disembarked and started up the stairs that lead from the harbor to Riva’s
Citadel. That series of stair-stepping walls that are part of the city’s
defenses were revealed as a part of the houses in which the Rivans
lived. The houses seemed bleak on the outside, but I’ve since
discovered that the interiors of those houses are places of beauty. In
many ways they are like the Rivans themselves. All the beauty is
on the inside. The streets of Riva are narrow and monotonously
straight. I strongly suspect that Riva had been guided by Belar in
the construction of the city. Everything about it has a defensive
purpose.
There was a shallow courtyard surrounded by a massive wall at
the top of the stairs. The size of the roughly squared-off stones in
that wall startled me. The amount of sheer physical labor which
had gone into the construction of the city was staggering. We entered
the Citadel through a great iron-bound door, and I found the interior
of my sister’s new home depressingly bleak. It took us quite some
time to reach our quarters. Beldaran and I were temporarily
ensconced in a quite pleasant set of rooms. I say temporarily because
Beldaran would soon be moving into the royal apartment.
‘You’re having fun, aren’t you, Pol?’ My sister asked me once we
were alone. Her voice seemed just a bit wistful, and she spoke in
‘twin’.
‘I don’t exactly follow you,’ I replied.
‘Now that you’ve decided to be pretty, you’ve got every young
man you come across fawning all over you.’
‘You’ve always been pretty, beldaran,’ I reminded her.
She sighed a rather sweet little sigh. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I
never got the chance to play with it. What’s it like to have everybody
around you dumbstruck with adoration?’
‘I rather like it.’ I laughed. ‘They’re all very foolish, though. If
you’re hungry for adoration, get yourself a puppy.’
She also laughed. ‘I wonder if all young men are as silly as these
Rivans are. I’d sort of hate to be the queen of the idiots.’
‘Mother says that it’s more or less universal,’ I told her, ‘and it’s
not just humans. Wolves are the same way, and so are rabbits. She
says that all young males have what she calls “urges”. The Gods
arranged it that way, I guess – so that there’ll always be a lot of
puppies.’
‘That’s a depressing turn of phrase, Pol. It sort of implies that all
I’m here for is to produce babies.’
‘Mother says that passes after a while. I guess it’s supposed to be
fun, so enjoy it while you can.’
She blushed.
‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go break a few hearts.’
There was a large hall near the center of the Citadel that seemed
to be where the members of Riva’s court gathered for fun and games.
The throne room was reserved for more formal occasions, and unlike
the rowdy throne room in Val Alorn where the Chereks mixed
business and pleasure, Riva’s Citadel had separate places for
separate activities. The door to the hall was open, and I peeked around
the edge of that door to assess my competition.
Rivan girls, like all Alorns, tend to be blonde, and I saw an
immediate advantage there. My dark hair would make me stand
out in the middle of what appeared to be a wheat field. The young
people in that large room were doing young-people things, flirting,
showing off, and the like. I waited, biding my time until one of those
lulls in the general babble hushed the room. Somehow I instinctively
knew that the hush would eventually come. That was when I’d
make my appearance. Entrances are very important in these
circumstances.
I finally got a little tired of waiting. ‘Make them be still, mother,’ I
pleaded with the presence that had been in my mind since before
I was born.
‘Oh, dear,’ mother sighed.
Then a hush fell over the brightly dressed throng.
I’d considered the notion of some kind of fanfare, but that might
have been just a trifle ostentatious. Instead, I simply stepped into
the precise center of the doorway and stopped, waiting for them all
to notice me. My blue gown was rather nice, so I was sure I’d attract
attention.
I think mother – or possibly Aldur – had fallen in with my scheme.
There was a fairly large window high in the wall opposite the door
and after I’d stood in the doorway for a moment, the sun broke
through the clouds which almost perpetually veiled the Isle, and its
light came through the window to fall full upon me.
That was even better than a fanfare. I stood regally in the middle
of that sun-flooded doorway, letting all the eyes in the room feast
themselves on me.
Dear Gods, that was enjoyable!
All right, it was vain and a little silly. So what? I was young.
There was a small group of musicians at the far end of the room
I’d hardly call them an orchestra – and they struck up a tune as I
regally entered the hall. As I’d rather hoped they would, most of
the young men began to move in my general direction, each of them
mentally refining some opening remark that he hoped would get
my attention. You have no idea how strained and inane some of
those remarks were. After about the fourth time someone compared
my eyes to a spring sky, I began to realize that unrestrained
creativity was not exactly rampant among adolescents. It somehow seemed
that I was adrift in a sea of platitudes. I got compared to summer
days, starry nights, and dark, snow-capped peaks – a rather obvious
reference to the white streak in my hair. They swarmed around me
like a flock of sparrows, elbowing each other out of the way. The
Rivan girls began to look a little sulky about the whole business.
A young blond fellow in a green doublet – quite handsome, actually
– pushed his way to the forefront of my suitors and bowed
rather floridly. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Lady Polgara, I presume?’ That was a
novel approach. He gave me a rather sly smile. ‘Tedious, isn’t it?
All this empty conversation, I mean. How much time can one really
spend talking about the weather?’
That earned him a few dark looks as a number of my suitors
hastily revised their opening remarks.
‘I’m certain you and I can find something more pleasant to talk
about,’ he continued smoothly, ‘politics, theology, or current fashion,
if you’d like.’ He actually seemed to have a mind.
‘We might want to think about that a bit,’ I countered. ‘What’s
your name?’
He slapped his forehead in feigned chagrin ‘How stupid of me’
he said. ‘How could I possibly have been so absent-minded?’ He
sighed theatrically. ‘It’s a failing of mine, I’m afraid. Sometimes I
think I need a keeper.’ He gave me a sly look. ‘Would you care to
volunteer for the post?’ he offered.
‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ I reminded him, ignoring
his offer.
‘You really shouldn’t let me get sidetracked that way, Lady