After extensive haggling, Carhein and Altor arranged a marriage
between their children, and the arrangements involved a dowry of
land.
It was not a happy union. Karak came to the bridal chamber
roaring drunk and forced his attentions on Cellan in the most brutal
way imaginable. Things went downhill from there. Karak turned
out to be a wife-beater, among other things, and word of this got
back to Altor, who mounted an expedition to rescue his daughter
There were quite a few casualties on both sides, but Altor succeeded
in taking his daughter home again. Then he declared the marriage
null and void and took back the dowry. Garhein went up in flames
– not so much about the wrecked marriage but rather about the loss
of the land. The feud between the two began to expand as cousins,
uncles, nephews, and the like enlisted on one side or the other.
Solitary ploughmen were butchered, and crops and houses were
burned.
Word of all this eventually reached the Citadel, and Daran,
Kamion and I gathered in Kamion’s book-lined study to consider
options.
‘They’re both very powerful men,’ Kamion told us gravely, ‘and
they both have extended families. We’re going to have to take steps,
or we’ll have another Arendia on our hands.’
‘Can a marriage actually be dissolved like that?’ Daran asked.
‘There are arguments on both sides about that, your Highness,’
Kamion replied. ‘In most cases, it depends on the relative power of
the two fathers. If the husband’s father is the more powerful, the
wife’s considered to be property. If it’s the other way around, she
isn’t.’
Daran frowned. ‘Have I got a big enough army to go down there
and force a settlement on those two hot-heads?’
‘I’d hold that in reserve, your Highness. Let’s try talking to them
first. A general mobilization probably wouldn’t hurt, though. It’d
be a demonstration of the fact that you aren’t happy about the
situation.’
‘What shape is the treasury in, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me. ‘Can
I afford a general mobilization?’
‘I suppose so – if you don’t drag it out too long.’ Then an idea
came to me. ‘Why don’t we hold a tournament instead?’
‘I’m sorry, Aunt Pol, but I didn’t understand that.’
‘It’s an Arendish custom, your Highness,’ Kamion explained. ‘It’s
a sort of military contest involving archery contests, mock
swordfights, axe throwing, jousting matches – that sort of thing.’
‘What’s jousting?’
‘Two armored men try to knock each other off the backs of their
horses with twenty-foot lances.’
‘What a peculiar notion.’
‘We could probably skip over that part,’Kamion said. ‘Alorns don’t
usually fight on horseback.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s really a very good
idea, Pol. It’d give Carhein and Altor an idea of just how much force
the throne can muster, and the nobles would have to pay their own
way. We make our point without emptying out the treasury.’
‘What if nobody comes?’ Daran fretted.
‘They’ll come, dear,’ I assured him. ‘It’s a chance to show off. The
planting’s all done now, so there’s nothing really very pressing to
keep people away. It’ll be an honor to be invited, so we can be fairly
sure that every nobleman on the Isle will put in an appearance.’
‘Including Carhein and Altor?’
‘Exactly. We can summon them to the Citadel during the
festivities. They’ll already be here in the city anyway. so they won’t be
able to refuse.’
‘And we can make an object lesson of them,’ Kamion added. ‘There
are other little disputes festering on various parts of the Isle. If you
come down hard on Carhein and Altor, other nobles should get the
point.’
‘That might be just a bit optimistic, Kamion,’ I suggested. ‘We are
talking about Alorns, after all.’
The invitations to the games went out, and the City of Riva was
teeming with burly Alorns when Altor and Carhein arrived. The
fact that almost every able-bodied man on the Isle had responded
to the Prince Regent’s invitation wasn’t lost on them. The regency
wasn’t yet a year old, but Daran’s authority was already
wellestablished. We gave the two feuding barons a bit of time to absorb
that, and then Daran summoned them to the Citadel. The meeting
was held in the throne room where all the symbols of power were
much in evidence.
I’ll state candidly here that my sympathies were wholly on the
side of Baron Altor and his daughter in the light of Karak’s open
brutality, but I’ll have to admit that the differences between Garhein
and Altor were very slight. Both of them were big, burly, bearded,
and not very bright. They wore chain mail shirts, but no swords,
since Kamion had prudently decided to have everyone who entered
the throne room disarmed at the door. Garhein had rusty-colored
hair that stuck out in all directions, while Altor had greased-down
black hair that looked much like a wet horsetail streaming down his
back. Though it was early in the day, the brutish Karak was already
drunk. He was a flabby young man with a sparse beard and
unkempt hair, and I could smell him from half-way across the throne
room. Altor’s daughter, Cellan, was the only one of the group to
appear even remotely civilized. She was pretty, in a blonde, busty,
Alorn sort of way, but her blue eyes were every bit as hard as her
father’s.
The feuding families had been prudently seated on opposite sides
of the Hall of the Rivan King. Word of the meeting had spread, and
the hall was filled with curious onlookers.
Daran, Kamion and I’d had plenty of time to lay out exactly what
we were going to do, so the entire event was carefully staged. The
palace guard had been turned out, of course, and armed, hulking
soldiers in mail shirts lined the walls just to make sure that there
wouldn’t be any interruptions or surprises. We’d had Daran’s
chair and table removed from the dais, so when we entered the
packed hall, my nephew went directly to his father’s throne and
sat down.
That caused quite a stir.
‘All right, then,’ Daran said crisply, ‘let’s get down to business
here.’ There was a no-nonsense tone in his voice indicating that he
was fully in charge. ‘My father’s distressed by certain things that’ve
been happening on the southern end of the Isle, and we don’t want
to upset him any further, do we?’ He leaned forward. ‘My Lord
Barons Carhein and Altor, come here.’ He pointed imperiously at
a spot directly in front of the dais.
The two warring hot-heads approached warily.
‘I’m going to put a stop to all this nonsense right here and now,’
my sandy-haired nephew informed them. ‘The next one of you who
breaks the king’s peace had better start packing, because he’ll be
moving immediately to the northern end of the Isle.’
‘Your Highness!’ Carhein protested. ‘It’s all rock up there! Nobody
can live on the northern end of the Isle!’
‘If you draw your sword one more time, Carhein, you’ll get a
chance to try. You could probably raise goats. goats eat almost
anything.’
Garhein’s son Karak lurched to his feet. ‘You can’t do that!’ he
bellowed at Daran in a drunken voice.
‘Can you sober this fool up, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me.
‘Of course,’ I replied.
‘Would you, please?
We’d been fairly certain that the beer-soaked Karak would
interrupt at some point in the proceedings, so I was fully prepared.
Daran had already demonstrated his power. Now it was my turn.
The fact that Elthek, the Rivan Deacon, was in attendance made my
performance a bit excessive, I’ll admit. Daran, Kamion and I were
spreading object lessons in all directions that day. ‘Bring that
drunkard here,’ I instructed the huge Master of the Guard.
‘At once, Lady Polgara,’ the vastly bearded soldier replied. He
bulled his way through the startled crowd, grasped Karak by the
scruff of the neck and dragged him to the front of the Hall.
I held out my hand, snapped my fingers and willed a tankard to
be there. Then I took a glass vial from my sleeve and poured the
contents into the tankard. I raised the oversized cup and said, ‘Beer.’
There was an absolute silence in the Hall, so the sound of the stream
of foamy, amber beer pouring out of empty air above the tankard
was clearly audible. I glanced at Elthek and noted with some
satisfaction that his eyes were bulging and his mouth gaped open. People
who pretend to perform magic are always very startled when they
encounter the real thing. Then I advanced on the cringing, smelly
Karak. ‘Now be a good boy and drink this,’ I instructed.
He looked at the tankard as if it were a snake and put both his
hands behind his back.
‘Make him drink it, Sergeant,’ Daran instructed the Master of the
Guard.
‘My pleasure, your Highness,’ the big soldier replied. He roughly
seized one of the drunkard’s hands and interlaced his fingers with