of toads. Father, quite naturally, took all the credit, and then he
strongly suggested that it was his decision that Earl Mangaran
assume the reins of the government.
The dead Murgo who’d subverted Duke Oldoran was buried with
Lammer’s arrow still stuck through his head, and since most of his
underlings were Angaraks incapable of making decisions on their
own, they had to wait for new instructions from Rak Cthol. Ctuchik
had been getting all sorts of bad news lately, and I had every
intention of going on to Vo Mimbre to send him some more.
Father, Mangaran, Asrana and I gathered in Asrana’s apartments
after everything had been nailed down to discuss our options at
this point. ‘My father might not agree with me,’ I told them, ‘but I
think our next step should be some peace overtures to Kathandrion
of Vo Wacune. Let’s shut down this silly war.’ I looked at father.
‘Any objections?’ I asked him.
‘This is your party, Pol,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Do it any way you
like.’
‘I’d more or less intended to, father.’ I cocked an eyebrow at
Asrana and Mangaran. ‘I’m going on to Vo Mimbre,’ I advised them.
‘Try not to get creative while I’m gone. Watch Oldoran’s relatives
and those half-dozen or so courtiers who were so upset by the
sudden passing of the fellow in the Tolnedran mantle. There are
probably other Murgos lurking about, though, and I think they’ll
also pose as Tolnedrans when they start showing up at court. I think
the best way to deal with them would be to lean heavily on that
“interim” business. Theoretically, you’re just filling in for Oldoran
until he regains his health, my Lord Mangaran. Pretend that you
don’t have the authority to sign treaties or agree to more informal
arrangements. Tell them that they’ll have to wait until the duke
recovers. That should stall anything new for about half a year.
Ctuchik’s plan has a definite time-table, I think, and an enforced
six-month delay should seriously disrupt it. The Dagashi will have to
Just mark time, but I won’t. I’ll be able to stop things at Vo Mimbre,
and they won’t be able to do a thing about it.’
‘Did you teach her how to be so devious, Holy
Belgarath?’Mangaran asked my father.
‘No,’ father replied. ‘It seems to be a natural talent. I’m terribly
proud of her, though.’
‘An actual compliment, father?’ I said. ‘I think I’ll faint.’
Asrana had been eyeing my father with a speculative look.
‘That’s a terrible mistake, dear,’ I told her. ‘You don’t really want
to get involved with him.’
‘I can take care of myself, Polly,’ she said, her eyes still on my
father.
‘Oh dear,’ I said. Then I threw up my hands and left for Vo
Mimbre.
*CHAPTER 15
My father suggested that I stop at Vo Mandor to talk with the
current baron on my way south, so Lady and I went down across
the vast, deforested plain of the Mimbrate duchy. Even then that
landscape was depressingly dotted with the ruins of towns, villages,
and isolated castles. I’m sure that Asturia and Wacune were littered
with the souvenirs of idiocies past as well, but those old wounds
moldered discreetly in the forests which covered the two northern
duchies. In Mimbre the grey stone ghosts of castles and the like
were always painfully visible and were thus a constant reminder of
the sorry history of Arendia. There are those who pass through the
plains of Mimbre who find the ruins picturesque and romantic, but
that’s usually long after the smoke and stench have been blown
away and the seasons have washed off the blood.
There wasn’t much danger that Mandorallen’s ancestral home
would ever be part of the nameless ruins of the tides of civil war.
VO Mandor was probably what they had in mind when they coined
the word ‘unassailable’. It stood atop a rocky knoll, and in the
process of construction the builders had hacked away the sides of
that knoll to obtain the necessary building stones. The end result
was a fortress situated atop a jutting peak with sheer sides hundreds
of feet high that defied assault – not that it hadn’t been tried a few
times, Arends being what they are and all.
As I thought about it, I reached the conclusion that the site of their
Place of origin may have played a significant role in the formation of
the character of that long, unbroken line of the Barons of Vo Mandor.
If You grow up with the conviction that no one can possibly hurt
You, it tends to make you just a bit rash.
The town of Vo Mandor surrounded the baron’s walled keep, and
the town itself was also walled. It was approached by a long, steep
causeway that was frequently interrupted by drawbridges designed
to impede access. All in all, Vo Mandor was one of the bleaker
places on earth.
The view from the top was magnificent, though.
Mandorin, the then-current baron, was a blocky widower in his
mid-forties. He had massive shoulders, silver-shot dark hair, and a
beautifully manicured beard. His manners were exquisite. When he
bowed, the act was a work of art, and his speech was so sprinkled
with interjected compliments that it often took him about a quarter
of an hour to wend his way through a sentence.
I liked him, though. Isn’t that odd? Perhaps it’s a character defect.
Good manners are such a rarity that I’ll endure excessive language
and all sorts of bowing and scraping just to avoid the casual incivility
so common in most of the rest of the world.
‘My Lady Polgara,’ the maroon-clad baron greeted me in the
courtyard of his grim fortress, ‘the walls of my poor house do
tremble as the very leaves at the presence of the paramount lady in
all this world within their confines – e’en as the mountains
themselves must be seized by convulsive ague as the sense of thy passage
doth strike them into their very vitals.’
‘Nicely put, my Lord,’ I congratulated him. ‘Gladly would I linger
in this happy place to hear more of thine exquisite speech, but
necessity, that cruelest of masters, doth compel me to unseemly
even discourteous – haste.’ I’ve read my share of Arendish epics,
and if Baron Mandorin thought he could outtalk me, he was greatly
mistaken. I’ve learned over the years that the best way to deal with
Arends is to talk them into insensibility. The only problem with that
is that they’re as patient as stones, so it takes a while.
Eventually Baron Mandorin escorted me to his private study,
a book-lined room carpeted and draped in blue high in the east
tower of his castle, and we got down to business – after he’d
fetched me a cushion to support my back in the already padded
chair he offered me, set a plate of sweetmeats close at hand on
the polished, dark wood table, sent for a pot of tea, and placed
a footstool close by – just on the off chance that my feet might
be tired.
‘Knowest thou my father, my Lord?’ I asked.
‘Holy Belgarath?’ he replied. ‘Intimately, my Lady – which doth
raise the question whether any person in all this world could
possibly know so towering an individual.’
‘I do, my Lord, and father doesn’t always tower. Sometimes he
stoops, but we digress. It hath come to mine attention – and to my
father’s – that there is discord in Arendia.’
Mandorin made a rueful face. ‘That, dear Lady, is the most cursory
description of several eons of Arendish history it hath ever been my
sad pleasure to hear. For ‘certes, discord lieth at the very soul of
Arendish existence.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed that. In this particular situation, however, the
discord hath its origins outside the boundaries of this most unhappy
of realms. Wacune was rent by dissention, and Asturia hath but
recently enjoyed the overturn of its government.’
‘Thou speakest as if these events had already passed into the
pages of history, my Lady.’
‘Yes, my Lord, they did.’
‘I do surmise that it was thy hand which stilled the waves of
contention in the northern duchies.’
‘I had some part in it, yes,’ I admitted modestly. ‘I exposed the
identity of an outside agitator to Duke Kathandrion of Wacune and
then proceeded on to Vo Astur and overthrew the government of
the incompetent Duke Oldoran. Now I’ve come to Mimbre.’
‘I do sense a certain ominous tone in that particular
pronouncement, my Lady.’
‘Set thy fears to rest, Baron Mandorin. Thine heart is pure, and
thou hast nothing to fear from me. I doubt that I shall have occasion
to turn thee into a toad nor stand thee on empty air some miles
above us.’
He smiled and inclined his head slightly. ‘Prithee, my Lady,’ he
said, ‘when we have leisure, might I beg instruction in the fine art