It had been the right thing to do, but it had very nearly broken Garion’s heart. He exchanged a quick glance with Rundorig that said all that needed saying, then he sadly watched the departure of the girl he had always thought that one day he might marry. When she turned a corner and disappeared, he sighed rather bitterly, turned back and found Ce’Nedra’s eyes on him. Her look plainly told him that she understood precisely what he had just done and how much it had cost him. There was sympathy in that look – and a peculiar questioning.
Despite Faldor’s urgings, Polgara immediately rejected the role of honored guest. It was as if her fingers itched to touch all the familiar things in the kitchen once more. No sooner had she entered than her cloak went on a peg, an apron went about her waist, and her hands fell to work. Her polite suggestions remained so for almost a full minute and a half before they became commands, and then everything was back to normal again. Faldor and Durnik, their hands clasped behind their back, strolled about the courtyard, looking into storage sheds, talking about the weather and other matters, and Garion stood in the kitchen doorway with Princess Ce’Nedra.
“Will you show me the farm, Garion?” she asked very quietly.
“If you wish.”
“Does Lady Polgara really like to cook that much?” She looked across the warm kitchen to where Aunt Pol, humming happily to herself, was rolling out a pie crust.
“I believe she does,” Garion answered. “Her kitchen is an orderly kind of place, and she likes order. Food goes in one end and supper comes out the other.” He looked around at the low-beamed room with all the polished pots and pans hanging on the wall. His life seemed to have come full-circle. “I grew up in this room,” he said quietly.
“There are worse places to grow up, I suppose.”
Ce’Nedra’s tiny hand crept into his. There was a kind of tentativeness in her touch – almost as if she were not entirely certain how the gesture would be received. There was something peculiar and rather comforting about holding her hand. It was a very small hand; sometimes Garion found himself forgetting just how diminutive Ce’Nedra really was. At the moment she seemed very tiny and very vulnerable, and Garion felt protective for some reason. He wondered if it would be appropriate to put his arm about her shoulder.
Together they wandered about the farmstead, looking into barns and stables and hen roosts. Finally they reached the hayloft that had always been Garion’s favorite hiding place. “I used to come here when I knew that Aunt Pol had work for me to do,” he confessed with a rueful little laugh.
“Didn’t you want to work?” Ce’Nedra asked him. “Everybody here seems to be busy every single moment.”
“I don’t mind working,” Garion told her. “It’s just that some of the things she wanted me to do were pretty distasteful.”
“Like scrubbing pots?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
“That’s not one of my favorites – no.”
They sat together on the soft, fragrant hay in the loft. Ce’Nedra, her fingers now locked firmly in Garion’s, absently traced designs on the back of his hand with her other forefinger. “You were very brave this afternoon, Garion,” she told him seriously.
“Brave?”
“You gave up something that’s always been very special and very important to you.”
“Oh,” he said. “You mean Zubrette. I think it was for the best, really. Rundorig loves her, and he can take care of her in ways that I probably won’t be able to.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Zubrette needs a lot of special attention. She’s clever and pretty, but she’s not really very brave. She used to run away from trouble a lot. She needs someone to watch over her and keep her warm and safe – somebody who can devote his entire life to her. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.”
“If you’d stayed here at the farm, though, you’d have married her, wouldn’t you?”
“Probably,” he admitted, “but I didn’t stay at the farm.”
“Didn’t it hurt – giving her up like that?”
Garion sighed. “Yes,” he said, “it did, sort of, but it was best for all of us, I think. I get a feeling that I’m going to spend a lot of my life travelling about, and Zubrette’s really not the sort of person you can ask to sleep on the ground.”
“You people never hesitated to ask me to sleep on the ground,” Ce’Nedra pointed out a trifle indignantly.
Garion looked at her. “We didn’t, did we? I guess I never thought about that before. Maybe it’s because you’re braver.”
The following morning after extended farewells and many promises to return, the four of them set out for Sendar.
“Well, Garion?” Aunt Pol said as they rode across the hill that put Faldor’s farm irrevocably behind them.
“Well what?”
She gave him a long, silent look.
He sighed. There was really not much point in trying to hide things from her. “I won’t be able to go back there, will I?”
“No, dear.”
“I guess I always thought that when this was all finished, maybe we could go back to the farm – but we won’t, will we?”
“No, Garion, we won’t. You had to see it again to realize it, though. It was the only way to get rid of the little bits and pieces of it you’ve been trailing behind you all these months. I’m not saying that Faldor’s is a bad place, you understand. It’s just that it’s not right for certain people.”
“We make the trip all the way up there just so I could find that out?”
“It is fairly important, Garion – of course I enjoyed visiting with Faldor, too – and there were a few special things I left in the kitchen – things I’ve had for a very long time and that I’d rather not lose.”
A sudden thought had occurred to Garion, however. “What about Ce’Nedra? Why did you insist that she come along?”
Aunt Pol glanced back once at the little princess, who was riding some yards behind them with her eyes lost in thought. “It didn’t hurt her, and she saw some things there that were important for her to see.”
“I’m fairly sure that I’ll never understand that.”
“No, dear,” she agreed, “probably not.”
It snowed fitfully for the next day and a half as they rode along the road that crossed the white central plain toward the capital at Sendar. Though it was not particularly cold, the sky remained overcast and periodic flurries swept in on them as they rode west. Near the coastline, the wind picked up noticeably, and the occasional glimpses of the sea were disquieting. Great waves ran before the wind, their tops ripped to frothy tatters.
At King Fulrach’s palace, they found Belgarath in a foul humor. It was little more than a week until Erastide, and the old man stood glaring out a window at the stormy sea as if it were all some kind of vast, personal insult. “So nice you could join us,” he said sarcastically to Aunt Pol when she and Garion entered the room where he brooded.
“Be civil, father,” she replied calmly, removing her blue cloak and laying it across a chair.
“Do you see what it’s doing out there, Pol?” He jabbed an angry finger toward the window.
“Yes, father,” she said, not even looking. Instead, she peered intently at his face. “You aren’t getting enough rest,” she accused him.
“How can I rest with all that going on?” He waved at the window again.
“You’re just going to agitate yourself, father, and that’s bad for you. Try to keep your composure.”
“We have to be in Riva by Erastide, Pol.”
“Yes, father, I know. Have you been taking your tonic?”
“There’s just no talking with her.” The old man appealed directly to Garion. “You can see that, can’t you?”
“You don’t really expect me to answer a question like that, do you, Grandfather? Not right here in front of her?”
Belgarath scowled at him. “Turncoat,” he muttered spitefully.
The old man’s concern, however, was unfounded. Four days before Erastide, Captain Greldik’s familiar ship sailed into the harbor out of a seething sleet storm. Her masts and bulwarks were coated with ice, and her main sail was ripped down the center.
When the bearded sailor arrived at the palace, he was escorted to the room where Belgarath waited with Captain – now Colonel – Brendig; the sober baronet who had arrested them all in Camaar so many months before. Brendig’s rise had been very rapid, and he was now, along with the Earl of Seline, among King Fulrach’s most trusted advisors.
“Anheg sent me,” Greldik reported laconically to Belgarath. “He’s waiting at Riva with Rhodar and Brand. They were wondering what was keeping you.”