‘By reputation, Old Wolf,’ I told him. ‘Vordai here is the one they
call “the witch of the fens”. She’s been outcast, and this is the only
place in Drasnia where she’s really safe.’
‘Probably because all the wood here is soggy enough to make
burning people at the stake very difficult,’ she added. ‘Come in out
of the rain.’
The interior of her cottage was scrupulously neat, her fireplace
was well-banked, and there was a vase of wildflowers sitting on
her table. The brown dress she wore reminded me of the dress my
mother had been wearing that time I’d actually met her in the caves
of Ulgo. Vordai, however, limped, and mother didn’t.
She wordlessly took our wet clothing, hung it near the fire to dry
and gave us blankets in which to wrap ourselves. ‘Seat yourselves,’
she told us then, pointing at the table. ‘There should be enough in
the pot for all of us.’ The odor coming from her pot identified the
meal she’d prepared as a delicately seasoned fish soup. Vordai was
clearly an outstanding cook.
‘You knew we were coming, didn’t you?’ I asked her.
‘Naturally. I am a witch, after all.’
Then one of the fenlings came loping in and reported something
in that excited chittering sound.
‘Yes,’ Vordai answered the sleek little beast, ‘I know.’
‘It’s true then,’ I said. I’d heard some wild stories about Vordai’s
ability to communicate with swamp creatures. ‘You shouldn’t really
have tampered with them, you know.’
‘It didn’t hurt them,’ she said with a shrug, ‘and I find them to
be much nicer to talk with than humans.’
There was an injured quality about this beautiful old woman that
I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Life hadn’t treated her well,
granted, but there was something else I couldn’t quite fathom. She
intrigued me more than I can say, and she also challenged the
physician in me. Physicians fix things that have gone wrong, but
my problem here was that I wasn’t exactly sure what was really
wrong. And so I decided to find out. I’m not one to pass up a
challenge – or had you noticed that?
After we’d eaten, I sent a silent, not so subtle message to my
father. ‘Go away,’ I told him.
‘What?’
‘Go outside. I need to be alone with Vordai. Go. Now.’
His face grew slightly sullen. ‘I’m going out to turn the boat over,’
he said aloud. ‘There’s no point in letting the rain fill it up with
water.’ Then he got up and left, looking slightly ridiculous in that
blanket.
‘I’ll help you with the dishes,’ I told our hostess. The little domestic
chores we share bring women closer together, but Vordai stubbornly
refused to open her heart to me – so I did it the other way. I reached
out with a tenuous thought, and once I was past her defensive
barrier, I found the source of her life-long bitterness. It was a man,
naturally. The origin of women’s problems almost always is. It was
a pedestrian thing, actually. When Vordai had been about fifteen,
she’d fallen deeply – and silently – in love. The man had been quite
a bit older than she was, and to put it bluntly, he was as stupid as
a stump. They’d lived in a soggy little village on the edge of the
fens, and Vordai’s efforts to attract and capture the heart of the
lumpish fellow had been unconventional. She used her gifts to help
her neighbors. Unfortunately, her quarry was religious – in the worst
possible way. He yearned in the depths of his grubby soul to ‘stamp
Out the abomination of witchcraft’, and it had been he who had led
the mob which had been out to burn her at the stake. She’d been
forced to flee into the fens, leaving behind her all hope of love,
marriage and children. And that was why – even after three hundred
years – she was out here in the fens devoting all her boundless love
to the fenlings. Hers was a silly little story of a deep, but misplaced,
affection that still burned in her heart.
‘Oh, dear,’ I said, my eyes suddenly filling with tears.
She gave me a startled look, and she suddenly realized
that I’d subtly invaded her mind. At first her reaction was one of outrage at
my unwelcome invasion, but then she realized that I’d done it out of
compassion. I was a sorceress after all, so I had no real objection to
witchcraft. Her defensive wall crumbled, and she wailed, ‘Oh,
Polgara!’ She began to weep, and I took her in my arms and held her
gently for quite some time, stroking her hair and murmuring comfort
to her. There wasn’t really anything else I could do. I knew what was
wrong now, but there was no way that I could fix it.
The rain let up, and father and I put our now-dry clothes back
on and resumed our journey. I spent a lot of time pondering those
two meetings while father poled us on through the swamp. Both in
the Nadrak mountains and again in Boktor, father had come up
with very lame excuses for us not to simply fly back to Annath.
Father could come up with all kinds of excuses to avoid work, but
on these occasions, his excuses put him directly in its path, and that
was so unusual as to get my attention immediately. For some reason,
we’d had to meet that old man in the Nadrak mountains and Vordai
in the fens. I finally gave up. Father and I weren’t the center of the
universe, after all, and perhaps those meetings were for someone
else’s benefit.
Well, of course I know who they were for – now. Vordai and the
gold-hunter were to be part of Garion’s education, and father and I
were little more than bystanders. It’s so obvious that I’m surprised
you missed it.
We reached Aldurford and made our way along the eastern foothills
of the Sendarian Mountains until we struck the little-used track
leading up a long valley to Annath. It was mid-afternoon when we
reached the stone quarry, and Geran. the newest heir, was waiting
for us. Geran had been a gangling adolescent when I’d left for Car
og Nadrak, but he was a Young man now. That happens frequently,
you know- Sometimes it happens overnight. Unlike most of the
Young men I’ve raised, Geran had dark, almost black hair, and his
eyes were a deep, deep blue. He wasn’t as tall, but he looked a great
deal like Riva Iron-grip himself ‘Aunt Pol!’ he exclaimed with some
relief. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t make it back in time for the
wedding.’
‘Which wedding was that, dear?’ I’m not sure why I said that. I
knew which wedding he was talking about.
‘Mine, of course,’he replied. ‘Ildera and I are getting married
next week.’
‘MY, my,’ I said. ‘Imagine that.’
Village weddings normally involve village people – the bride and
groom in particular. Not infrequently, they’re neighbors, and they’ve
usually grown up together. This time, however, they not only came
from different places, but were of different nationalities. The
problems
that arose Out of those differences didn’t involve the hhappy
couple this time, though. The problems arose from their mothers.
Geran’s mother, Alara, and Ildera’s mother, Olane. They detested
each other. Ildera’s father, Grettan, was the Chief of his clan, and
that seems to have gone to Olane’s head. She made no secret of the
fact that to her way of looking at it, Ildera was marrying beneath
herself. In Alara’s eyes ‘ her son was the Crown Prince of Riva, and
Olane’s condescension really grated on her nerves. I had to virtually
ride herd on her constantly to keep her from proudly announcing
her son’s eminence. It was a very harrowing time for me.
Perhaps if I hadn’t been away during the final stages of the courtship
, I might have been able to head things off, but now it was too
late. it had reached the point where the bride and groom were
secondary. The personal animosity between Alara and Olane had
spread, and the local Sendars and the clansmen from Algaria were
unspoken antagonists.
‘All right, gentlemen,’ I said to father and Darral one evening.
we’ve got a problem. I’ll keep Alara and Olane from each other’s
throats, but you two are going to have to keep order in the streets
– and in the local tavern. I don’t want any bloodshed before the
ceremony. If these idiots want to beat each other into a large
communal pulp, it’s your job to make sure that they do it after the wedding.’
‘I could talk with Knapp, the tavern owner,’Darral said dubiously.
‘Maybe I could persuade him to close for renovations or something.
He might agree. A general brawl would probably wreck his place
of business.,
Father shook his head. ‘They’re bad-tempered enough already,’