“Let’s find your Aunt’s spice merchant,” he said, “and then see to a night’s lodging-and a stable for our horse.” They set off down the street, leaving horse and cart beside the tavern.
The house of the Tolnedran spice merchant was a tall, narrow building in the next street. Two swarthy, thick-bodied men in short tunics lounged in the street at his front door near a fierce-looking black horse wearing a curious armored saddle. The two men stared with dull-eyed disinterest at passers-by in the lane.
Mister Wolf stopped when he caught sight of them.
“Is something wrong?” Garion asked.
“Thulls,” Wolf said quietly, looking hard at the two men.
“What?”
“Those two are Thulls,” the old man said. “They usually work as porters for the Murgos.”
“What are Murgos?”
“The people of Cthol Murgos,” Wolf said shortly. “Southern Angaraks.”
“The ones we beat at the battle of Vo Mimbre?” Garion asked. “Why would they be here?”
“The Murgos have taken up commerce,” Wolf said, frowning. “I hadn’t expected to see one of them in so remote a village. We may as well go in. The Thulls have seen us, and it might look strange if we turned now and went back. Stay close to me, boy, and don’t say anything.”
They walked past the two heavyset men and entered the spice merchant’s shop.
The Tolnedran was a thin, baldheaded man wearing a brown, belted gown that reached to the floor. He was nervously weighing several packets of pungent-smelling powder which lay on the counter before him.
“Good day to you,” he said to Wolf. “Please have patience. I’ll be with you shortly.” He spoke with a slight lisp that Garion found peculiar.
“No hurry,” Wolf said in a wheezy, cracking voice. Garion looked at him sharply and was astonished to see that his friend was stooped and that his head was nodding foolishly.
“See to their needs,” the other man in the shop said shortly. He was a dark, burly man wearing a chain-mail shirt and a short sword belted to his waist. His cheekbones were high, and there were several savagelooking scars on his face. His eyes looked curiously angular, and his voice was harsh and thickly accented.
“No hurry,” Wolf said in his wheezy cackle.
“My business.here will take some time,” the Murgo said coldly, “and 1 prefer not to be rushed. Tell the merchant here what you need, old man.”
“My thanks, then,” Wolf cackled. “I have a list somewhere about me.” He began to fumble foolishly in his pockets. “My master drew it up. I do hope you can read it, friend merchant, for I cannot.” He finally found the list and presented it to the Tolnedran.
The merchant glanced at the list. “This will only take a moment,” he told the Murgo.
The Murgo nodded and stood staring stonily at Wolf and Garion. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his expression changed. “You’re a seemly appearing boy,” he said to Garion. “What’s your name?”
Until that moment, in his entire life, Garion had been an honest and truthful boy, but Wolf’s manner had opened before his eyes an entire world of deception and subterfuge. Somewhere in the back of his mind he seemed to hear a warning voice, a dry, calm voice advising him that the situation was dangerous and that he should take steps to protect himself. He hesitated only an instant before telling his first deliberate lie. He allowed his mouth to drop open and his face to assume an expression of vacantheaded stupidity. “Rundorig, your Honor,” he mumbled.
“An Arendish name,” the Murgo said, his eyes narrowing even more. “You don’t look like an Arend.”
Garion gaped at him.
“Are you an Arend, Rundorig?” the Murgo pressed.
Garion frowned as if struggling with a thought while his mind raced. The dry voice suggested several alternatives.
“My father was,” he said finally, “but my mother is a Sendar, and people say I favor her.”
“You say was, ” the Murgo said quickly. “Is your father dead, then?” His scarred face was intent.
Garion nodded foolishly. “A tree he was cutting fell on him,” he lied. “It was a long time ago.”
The Murgo suddenly seemed to lose interest. “Here’s a copper penny for you, boy,” he said, indifferently tossing a small coin on the floor at Garion’s feet. “It has the likeness of the God Torak stamped on it. Perhaps it will bring you luck-or at least more wit.”
Wolf stooped quickly and retrieved the coin, but the coin he handed to Garion was a common Sendarian penny.
“Thank the good man, Rundorig,” he wheezed.
“My thanks, your Honor,” Garion said, concealing the penny tightly in his fist.
The Murgo shrugged and looked away.
Wolf paid the Tolnedran merchant for the spices, and he and Garion left the shop.
“You played a dangerous game, boy,” Wolf said once they were out of earshot of the two lounging Thulls.
“You seemed not to want him to know who we were,” Garion explained. “I wasn’t sure why, but I thought I ought to do the same. Was what I did wrong?”
“You’re very quick,” Wolf said approvingly. “I think we managed to deceive the Murgo.”
“Why did you change the coin?” Garion asked.
“Sometimes Angarak coins are not what they seem,” Wolf said. “It’s better for you not to have any of them. Let’s fetch our horse and cart. It’s a long way back to Faldor’s farm.”
“I thought we were going to take lodgings for the night.”
“That’s changed now. Come along, boy. It’s time for us to leave.”
The horse was very tired, and he moved slowly up the long hill out of Upper Gralt as the sun went down ahead of them.
“Why wouldn’t you let me keep the Angarak penny, Mister Wolf?” Garion persisted. The subject still puzzled him.
“There are many things in this world that seem to be one thing and are in fact another,” Wolf said somewhat grimly. “I don’t trust Angaraks, and I particularly don’t trust Murgos. It would be just as well, I think, if you never had in your possession anything that bears the likeness of Torak.”
“But the war between the west and the Angaraks has been over for five hundred years now,” Garion objected.”All men say so.”
“Not all men,” Wolf said. “Now take that robe out of the back of the cart and cover up. Your Aunt would never forgive me if you should take a chill.”
“I will if you think I should,” Garion said, “but I’m not a bit cold and not at all sleepy. I’ll keep you company as we go.”
“That’ll be a comfort, boy,” Wolf said.
“Mister Wolf,” Garion said after some time, “did you know my mother and father?”
“Yes,” Wolf said quietly.
“My father’s dead too, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Garion sighed deeply. “I thought so,” he said. “I wish I’d known them. Aunt Pol says I was only a baby when-” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “I’ve tried to remember my mother, but I can’t.”
“You were very small,” Wolf said.
“What were they like?” Garion asked.
Wolf scratched at his beard. “Ordinary,” he said. “So ordinary you wouldn’t look twice at either one of them.”
Garion was offended by that. “Aunt Pol says my mother was very beautiful,” he objected.
“She was.”
“Then how can you say she was ordinary?”
“She wasn’t prominent or important,” Wolf said. “Neither was your father. Anyone who saw them thought that they were just simple village people – a young man with a young wife and their baby – that’s all anyone ever saw. That’s all anyone was ever supposed to see.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s very complicated.”
“What was my father like?”
“Medium size,” Wolf said. “Dark hair. A very serious young man. I liked him.”
“Did he love my mother?”
“More than anything.”
“And me?”
“Of course.”
“What kind of place did they live in?”
“It was a small place,” Wolf said, “a little village near the mountains, a long way from any main roads. They had a cottage at the end of the street. It was a small, solid little house. Your father built it himself – he was a stonecutter. I used to stop by there once in a while when I was in the neighborhood.” The old man’s voice droned on, describing the village and the house and the two who lived there. Garion listened, not even realizing it when he fell asleep.
It must have been very late, almost on toward dawn. In a half drowse, the boy felt himself lifted from the cart and carried up a flight of stairs. The old man was surprisingly strong. Aunt Pol was there – he knew that without even opening his eyes. There was a particular scent about her that he could have found in a dark room.
“Just cover him up,” Mister Wolf said softly to Aunt Pol. “Best not to wake him just now.”