‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Go out there and start breaking hearts. Flutter your eyelashes,
spread around those long, low, suggestive looks, sigh a lot and
heave your bosom. Let your eyes fill with luminous tears.’
‘Oh, what fun!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands in glee. ‘Are
you going to break hearts too, Polly?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not known here, so the people we’ll be
trying to recruit wouldn’t be inclined to listen to me. Besides, I’ve
got some other things to take care of. That means that you two will
have to make all the necessary contacts. I want a dozen or so cohorts
in the proper places at the proper time tonight. See to it.’
‘Have you by any chance ever commanded troops, Lady Polgara?’
Earl Mangaran asked curiously.
‘Not as yet, my Lord. I can usually get things done without
bloodshed. Oh, that reminds me. I am going to need an archer – the best
you can find. I’m going to need one arrow in a very specific place
at a very specific time.’
‘I knew she was going to kill the duke!’ Asrana exclaimed
delightedly.
‘No, dear,’ I told her. ‘I want the duke to come out of this alive.
If we kill him, all the people at Baron Torandin’s party will be up
in arms tomorrow morning. The arrow’s intended for somebody
else. Let’s get started. This day won’t last forever, and we all have
a lot to do. And don’t sneak or look guilty. Keep that word “patriot”
right in front of your eyes.’
That set things in motion, but the limitations I’d imposed kept
our plot from stirring too many ripples. Regardless of their other
faults, Arends are among the world’s great plotters. Asrana and
Mangaran moved quietly through the courtiers, sounding out the
crucial ones and keeping the rest in the dark. Naturally, they
extracted oaths of silence and embedded some ridiculous passwords
and recognition signals in the minds of our co-conspirators. I guess
the only objections they encountered had had to do with the haste at
which we were moving. A one-day coup didn’t really fit into the
Arendish conception of how things ought to be done.
By noon, our conspiracy was fairly well established. Mangaran
subverted a few older, more substantial members of the court, and
Asrana skimmed off the cream of the young hot-heads. My own
contributions that morning were chemical in nature. The wine our
co-conspirators drank for the rest of the day wouldn’t have knocked
a fly off the wall. Those most likely to remain loyal to Oldoran
drank wine that would not only have gotten the fly, but probably
the wall he perched on as well.
It was about an hour or so past noon when Mangaran’s friend,
the Marquis Torandin. issued his selective invitations to ‘an intimate
little soiree at my residence this evening’. Then Mangaran and
Asrana had to go back through the ranks of their cohorts to tell
them not to protest their exclusion from the festivities. At that
particular time in Vo Astur just about everything was suspended when
a good party was in the offing, and several plotters seemed torn
between the conflicting delights of a good party or a good revolution.
In the second hour past noon, I had to come up with a way to
keep the duke at home. I solved that by fortifying the wine he was
drinking as he sprawled on his throne. By the third hour, he was
comatose.
The ‘Tolnedran’ at his elbow began to have a few suspicions at
that point, I think, but we were moving too rapidly for him by now.
Our scheme was ridiculously simple. When you’re dealing with
Arends, you should always try to avoid complexity. Every courtier
in the palace had a number of ‘valets’, ‘grooms’, ‘butlers’, and the
like in his entourage. Since this was Arendia, these ‘servants’ all
had assorted weapons concealed about their persons, and they’d
respond immediately to commands even though they didn’t know
what was going on. We had plenty of manpower should we need
it, but once those who might oppose us had trooped across town
to Marquis Torandin’s party, our only opposition might come from
the duke’s own bodyguards, and tampering with the wine served
to them with their evening meal would neatly get them out from
underfoot. The imitation Tolnedran quite probably had a few
bullyboys at his disposal, but our superior numbers made us confident
that they wouldn’t pose much of a problem. Our excuse for deposing
Oldoran would be ‘his Grace’s sudden illness’. There was nothing
really ‘sudden’ about it. Oldoran had spent years head-down in a
wine barrel to achieve his current condition.
Not long before supper, I took Asrana and Mangaran back out
into the rose garden to hammer down some last-minute details.
‘Don’t kill him,’ I instructed them very firmly. ‘Everything will fly
apart if you do. I want everybody to pull a long face when we do
this. Pretend to be concerned about Oldoran’s health.’ I looked at
Mangaran. ‘Did you speak with the abbot?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘He’s got everything ready. Oldoran will have
pleasant quarters in the monastery and all the wine he can possibly drink.
The abbot will issue periodic statements about his Grace’s condition
– which will probably deteriorate as time goes by.’
‘Don’t do anything to help that along,’ I cautioned. ‘Let Oldoran’s
liver take him off.’
‘How long’s that likely to take, Polly?’ Asrana asked me.
‘I’d give him about another six months,’ I replied. ‘The whites of
his eyes are already yellow. His liver’s turning to stone. He’ll start
raving before long, and that’s when you’ll want to start taking his
supporters to see him. Let them observe his condition for
themselves.’
‘Are you the one who’s making his liver go bad, Polly?’ Asrana
asked.
‘No. He’s done that all by himself.’
‘Does wine really do that to people?’
‘Oh, yes, dear. You might want to think about that.’
‘Maybe I’d better cut back just a little bit,’ she said with a slightly
‘I would. It’s your liver, though. Now, then, I want you two to
circulate among our “patriots”. Impress upon them the fact that
we’re doing this regretfully. We don’t want to do it, but we have
no choice. our revolution grows out of our love for Asturia.’
‘That’s not entirely true, Lady Polgara,’ Mangaran told me
candidly.
‘Lie about it, then. Good politics are always based on lies. When
you make these speeches, always be sure there are people in the
crowd to lead the cheering. Don’t leave anything to chance.’
‘You’re a terrible cynic, Polly,’ Asrana accused.
‘Possibly, but I can live with it. Pressing right along, then. After
the duke’s safely tucked away in that monastery, talk with some of
the local barons. I want lots of armed men in the streets of Vo Astur
by morning. Caution the barons that I want their troops to be polite.
No looting, no murders, no fires, no incidental rapes. They’ll be out
there to maintain order and nothing else. I’ll decide what’s
disorderly. Let’s not give the opposition any excuses for
counterrevolution. Oh, one other thing. Tomorrow morning, an old man
with white hair and wearing a white robe is going to come here to
the palace. He’s going to make a speech, and I want everybody here
at court – drunk or sober – to hear that speech. He’s going to tell
everybody that what we’ve done has been done at his specific orders.
I don’t think we’ll have any trouble after that.’
,Who in all this world has that much authority?’ Mangaran asked,
looking slightly harried.
‘My father, naturally.’
,Holy Belgarath himself?’ Asrana gasped.
,i wouldn’t tack “holy” onto him until after you’ve met him, dear,’
I advised. ‘And I wouldn’t turn my back on him, if I were you. He
has an eye for the ladies and a little difficulty in keeping his hands
to himself.’
,Really?’ she said archly. ‘What an interesting idea.’ Asrana, it
appeared, was worse than I thought.
‘Did you find my archer, Mangaran?’ I asked the earl.
‘Yes, Lady Polgara,’ he replied. ‘His name’s Lammer, and he can
thread a needle with an arrow at a hundred paces.’
‘Good. I’ll want to speak with him before we set things in motion.’
‘Ah -‘ Mangaran said a bit tentatively, ‘just exactly when’s that
going to be, Lady Polgara?’ he asked.
‘When I come into the throne room this evening, my Lord. That’ll
be your signal to start.’
‘I’ll watch for you,’ he promised.
‘Do that. Now, let’s get to work.’
I lingered in the rose garden until they’d left. ‘All right, father,’ I
said, speaking to a decorative lemon tree, ‘you can come down now.’
He looked just a bit foolish after he’d flown down and resumed
his real form. ‘How did you know I was around?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be tiresome, father. You know perfectly well that you can’t