won’t you? Perhaps a week in advance? Long enough for me to buy up
most of the assets of the Vorduvians, Honeths, and Horbites, at any rate.
I should be able to buy them out at well below cost. Then, when normal
commerce with Arendia resumes, I’ll make millions..’
‘I always like to help a friend get ahead in the world,’ I said.
‘Polgara, I love you!’ he exclaimed exultantly.
‘Ran Borune!’ I said- in feigned shock, ‘we’ve only just met!’
He laughed, and then he danced a little jig of pure delight. ‘I’ll skin
them, Polgara!’ he crowed. ‘I’ll skin them alive! I’ll put those arrogant
northerners in debt for generations!’
‘After you’ve stripped off their hides, you don’t necessarily have to
keep my part in our little arrangement a secret. I think it’d be sort of nice
to have all of northern Tolnedra shudder every time someone so much as
whispers my name.’
‘I’ll see to it,’ he promised. Then he pointed at his ailing rose-bush.
‘What kind of fish?’ he asked.
‘Carp, I think,’ I replied. ‘They’re bigger – and fatter.’
‘I’ll get right at it. Would you like to go fishing with me?’
‘Some other time, perhaps. I’d better get on back to Arendia. I’ll close
the borders in two weeks. That should give you time enough to swindle
the northerners.’
‘Come by any time, Polgara. My doors are always open to you.’
I changed form at that point. Ran Borune and I were getting along
famously, but I did want him to remember exactly who I was. I
circled him, brushing his startled face with my wing-tips, and then
I flew off.
There are many ways to head off a war, but I’m particularly proud
of that one. Not only did I virtually ruin the people who were most
offending me, but I also gained a friend.
Arendia remained peaceful after that, and I even began to arrange
a few intermarriages to help blur the distinctions which had always
been so helpful in starting new wars.
It was early in the twenty-eighth century – about 2710, I believe
– when the dukes, Conerian of Wacune, Kanallan of Asturia, and
Enasian of Mimbre made a suggestion that I thought was just a bit
on the ridiculous side, but they were so enthusiastic about the whole
idea that I somewhat reluctantly went along with them. I think the
notion probably originated with Enasian, since the Mimbrates have
always been addicted to epic poetry and its overblown conventions.
What they proposed was nothing less than a grand tournament
involving nobles from all four duchies, with the winner of that
tournament – assuming that anyone survived a week or so of formalized
mayhem – to be designated my champion.
What did I need with a champion?
They were all so terribly sincere, though. ‘Dear Lady,’ Enasian
said, with actual tears standing in his eyes, ‘thou must have a
knightprotector to shield thee from insult and affront. Rude scoundrels,
perceiving thine unprotected state, might exceed the bounds of
courteous behavior and offer thee incivilities. My brother dukes and I,
of course, would leap to thy defense, but it seemeth to me – and
Gonerian and Kanallan do heartily agree – that thou shouldst have
an invincible knight at arms at thine immediate disposal to chastise
knavery whensoever it doth rear its ugly head.’
He was so sincere that I hadn’t the heart to point out the obvious
to him. I needed someone to protect and defend me almost as much
as I needed a third foot. The more I thought about it, though, the
more I came to realize that a ‘sporting event’ – particularly one
involving formalized violence – could be a fairly good substitute
for war, just in case someone hungered for the ‘good old days’.
Because of its centralized location, we decided to hold the
tournament on a field adjoining the Great Arendish Fair. Stands were
erected to provide seating for the spectators, lists for jousting with
lances and war-horses were laid out, and, sensing a probable need
for them, I brought the entire faculty of the College of Practical
Medicine in Sulturn along with me to tend to the casualties.
since the festivities were held in my honor, I was able to ban the
more potentially lethal events. I firmly banned the grand melee,
for example. There was some pouting about that, but I felt that a
generalized tavern-brawl involving men in full armor might tax the
capacity of our field-hospital. I also forbade the use of battle-axes
and chain maces, and insisted on blunted lances. Quite naturally, the
core of the tournament was the exquisitely formal jousting matches
colorful events where knights in shining armor and wearing red or
gold or deep blue surcoats charged each other across the bright
green turf attempting to unhorse each other with twenty-foot lances.
Since even the winner of such an event is likely to hear bells ringing
in his head for several hours after his victory, we interspersed other
events so that the knights might recover. There were archery contests
for the yeomen, catapult matches judged on distance and accuracy
for the engineers, and weight lifting, pole-tossing and rock throwing
contests for the serfs and freemen. There were other entertainments
as well – juggling, singing, and dancing.
It was all very festive, but it went on for weeks, and quite naturally
I had to sit through all of it wondering just what the prize might
be for inhuman patience.
Eventually, as was fairly obvious he would be from the first round
of jousting matches, the ultimate winner was the then-current Baron
of Mandor, a massively muscular Mimbrate knight named Mandorathan
. I knew him quite well, since my father had urged me to
keep an eye on his family. Father quite obviously had plans for the
Mandors.
I liked Mandorathan – once I persuaded him to stop falling on
his knees every time I entered the room. A man in full armor is so
noisy when he does that. I did notice that the level of civility at my
Court’ improved enormously when my fully armored champion
stood just behind my chair looking ominous. My vassals by now
had fairly good manners, but Mandorathan’s presence encouraged
them to polish those manners until they positively gleamed.
The twenty-eighth century was a time of peace and prosperity in
Arendia, and my duchy flourished, in no small part I think because
mY vassals followed my lead in the business of enriching the soil.
There are many lakes in what is now Sendaria, and most of them
have peat bogs surrounding them. I’d discovered on the Isle of the
Winds that peat does wonders when plowed into the soil, and if
the weather cooperated only slightly, every year in my realm was
better than the previous one. I introduced new crops and brought
in new strains of cattle from Algaria. I pillaged uncle Beldin’s library
for treatises on agriculture – largely written by scholars at the University
of Melcene – and I applied the most advanced techniques
in my domain. I built roads from farm to market, and to some degree
I controlled prices to insure that the farmers in the duchy were not
swindled by the merchants who bought their crops. I was denounced
in some circles as a busybody, but I didn’t really care about that. I
mothered the Duchy of Erat outrageously, and as time went on, my
subjects came to realize that ‘Mumsy would take care of everything,’
There were a couple of things that ‘Mumsy’ did that they didn’t
like, however. I absolutely insisted that they keep their villages tidy,
for one thing, and laborers eager to get to the nearest tavern after
Work didn’t much enjoy picking up their tools before they went off
to celebrate. I also put a stop to wife-beating, a favorite pastime of
a surprising number of men. My methods were very direct. A man
who’s stupid enough to beat his wife isn’t likely to listen to reason,
so I instructed the constable of each village to ‘persuade’ wife-beaters
to find another hobby. I did urge the constables not break too manybe
bones in the process, however. A man with two broken legs can’t
really put in a full day’s work, after all. There was, I remember, one
very thick-headed fellow in the village of Mid Tolling who was so
stubborn about it that he wound up with both arms and both legs
broken before he got the point. After that, he was the politest
husband you’ve ever seen.
The tournament at the Great Arendish Fair became a fixture, an
addendum, if you will, to the annual meeting of the Arendish
Council.-teon of Asturia was defenestrated by his barons a few years
later. That’s one of the disadvantages of living in a palace with high
towers. There’s always the possibility of ‘accidentally’ falling out of
a window about seven stories above a flagstoned courtyard.