Her friends watched her and worried.
“I’m not sure how much longer she can keep up this pace,” King Fulrach confided to King Rhodar as they rode directly behind the drooping little queen toward the ruins of Vo Wacune, where she was to address yet another gathering. “I think we tend sometimes to forget how small and delicate she is.”
“Maybe we’d better consult with Polgara,” King Rhodar agreed. “I think the child needs a week’s rest.”
Ce’Nedra, however, knew that she could not stop. There was a momentum to this, a kind of accelerating rhythm that could not be broken. At first, word of her coming had spread slowly, but now it ran ahead of them, and she knew they must run faster and faster to keep up with it. There was a crucial point at which the curiosity about her must be satisfied or the whole thing would collapse and she’d have to begin all over again.
The crowd at Vo Wacune was the largest she had yet addressed. Half convinced already, they needed only a single spark to ignite them. Once again sick with unreasoning panic, the Rivan Queen gathered her strength and rose to address them and to set them aflame with her call to war.
When it was over and the young nobles had been gathered into the growing ranks of the army, Ce’Nedra sought a few moments of solitude on the outskirts of the camp to compose herself. This had become a kind of necessary ritual for her. Sometimes she was sick after a speech and sometimes she wept. Sometimes she merely wandered listlessly, not even seeing the trees about her. At Polgara’s instruction, Durnik always accompanied her, and Ce’Nedra found the company of this solid, practical man strangely comforting.
They had walked some distance from the ruins. The afternoon was bright and sunny, and birds sang among the trees. Pensively, Ce’Nedra walked, letting the peace of the forest quiet the agitated turmoil within her.
“It’s all very well for noblemen, Detton,” she heard someone say somewhere on the other side of a thicket, “but what does it have to do with us?”
“You’re probably right, Lammer,” a second voice agreed with a regretful sigh. “It was very stirring, though, wasn’t it?”
“The only thing that ought to stir a serf is the sight of something to eat,” the first man declared bitterly. “The little girl can talk all she wants about duty, but my only duty is to my stomach.” He stopped abruptly. “Are the leaves of that plant over there fit to eat?” he asked.
“I think they’re poisonous, Lammer,” Detton replied.
“But you’re not sure? I’d hate to pass up something I could eat if there was any chance that it wouldn’t kill me.”
Ce’Nedra listened to the two serfs with growing horror. Could anybody be reduced to that level? Impulsively, she stepped around the thicket to confront them. Durnik, as always, stayed close by her side.
The two serfs were dressed in mud-spattered rags. They were both men of middle years, and there was no evidence on their faces that either of them had ever known a happy day. The leaner of the two was closely examining a thick-leafed weed, but the other saw Ce’Nedra approaching and started with obvious fright. “Lammer.” He gasped. “It’s her – the one who spoke today.”
Lammer straightened, his gaunt face going pale beneath the dirt that smudged it. “Your Ladyship,” he said, grotesquely trying to bow. “We were just on our way back to our villages. We didn’t know this part of the forest was yours. We didn’t take anything.” He held out his empty hands as if to prove his words.
“How long has it been since you’ve had anything to eat?” she demanded of him.
“I ate some grass this morning, your Ladyship,” Lammer replied, “and I had a couple of turnips yesterday. They were a little wormy, but not too bad.”
Ce’Nedra’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Who’s done this to you?” she asked him.
Lammer looked a little confused at her question. Finally he shrugged slightly. “The world, I guess, your Ladyship. A certain part of what we raise goes to our lord, and a certain part to his lord. Then there’s the part that has to go to the king and the part that has to go to the royal governor. And we’re still paying for some wars my lord had a few years ago. After all of that’s been paid, there isn’t very much left for us.”
A horrible thought struck her. “I’m gathering an army for a campaign in the East,” she told them.
“Yes, your Ladyship,” the other serf, Detton, replied. “We heard your speech today.”
“What will that do to you?”
Detton shrugged. “It will mean more taxes, your Ladyship – and some of our sons will be taken for soldiers if our lords decide to join you. Serfs don’t really make very good soldiers, but they can always carry baggage. And when the time comes to storm a castle, the nobility seem to want to have a lot of serfs around to help with the dying.”
“Then you never feel any patriotism when you go to war?”
“What could patriotism have to do with serfs, my Lady?” Lammer asked her. “Until a month or so ago I didn’t even know the name of my country. None of it belongs to me. Why should I have any feelings about it?”
Ce’Nedra could not answer that question. Their lives were so bleak, so hopelessly empty, and her call to war meant only greater hardship and more suffering for them. “What about your families?” she asked. “If Torak wins, the Grolims will come and slaughter your families on his altars.”
“I have no family, my Lady,” Lammer replied in a dead voice. “My son died several years ago. My lord was fighting a war somewhere, and when they attacked a castle, the people inside poured boiling pitch down on the serfs who were trying to raise a ladder. My wife starved herself to death after she heard about it. The Grolims can’t hurt either one of them now, and if they want to kill me, they’re welcome to.”
“Isn’t there anything at all you’d be willing to fight for?”
“Food, I suppose,” Lammer said after a moment’s thought. “I’m very tired of being hungry.”
Ce’Nedra turned to the other serf. “What about you?” she asked him.
“I’d walk into fire for somebody who fed me,” Detton replied fervently.
“Come with me,” Ce’Nedra commanded them, and she turned and led the way back to the camp and the large, bulky supply wagons that had transported the vast quantities of food from the storehouses of Sendaria. “I want these two men fed,” she told a startled cook. “As much as they can eat.”
Durnik, however, his honest eyes brimming with compassion, had already reached into one of the wagons and taken out a large loaf of bread. He tore it in two and gave half to Lammer and half to Detton.
Lammer stared at the chunk of bread in his hands, trembling violently. “I’ll follow you, my Lady,” he declared in a quavering voice. “I’ve eaten my shoes and lived on boiled grass and tree roots.” His fists closed about the chunk of bread as if he were afraid someone might take it away from him. “I’ll follow you to the end of the world and back for this.” And he began to eat, tearing at the bread with his teeth.
Ce’Nedra stared at him, and then she suddenly fled. By the time she reached her tent she was weeping hysterically. Adara and Taiba tried without success to comfort her, and finally they sent for Polgara.
When the sorceress arrived, she took one brief look and asked Taiba and Adara to leave her alone with the sobbing girl. “All right, Ce’Nedra,” she said calmly, sitting on the bed and gathering the princess in her arms, “what’s this all about?”
“I can’t do it any more, Lady Polgara,” Ce’Nedra cried. “I just can’t.”
“It was your idea in the first place,” Polgara reminded her.
“I was wrong.” Ce’Nedra sobbed. “Wrong, wrong! I should have stayed in Riva.”
“No,” Polgara disagreed. “You’ve done something that none of the rest of us could have. You’ve guaranteed us the Arends. I’m not even sure Garion could have done that.”
“But they’re all going to die!” Ce’Nedra wailed.
“Where did you get that idea?”
“The Angaraks are going to outnumber us at least two to one. They’ll butcher my army.”
“Who told you that?”
“I – I listened,” Ce’Nedra replied, fumbling with the amulet at her throat. “I heard what Rhodar, Anheg, and the others said when they heard about the southern Murgos.”
“I see,” Polgara said gravely.
“We’re going to throw away our lives. Nothing can save us. And just now I even found a way to bring the serfs into it. Their lives are so miserable that they’ll follow me just for the chance to eat regularly. And I’ll do it, Lady Polgara. If I think I might need them, I’ll deliberately take them from their homes and lead them to their deaths. I can’t help myself.”