“I think I see where this is going,” Durnik remarked disapprovingly.
“Not exactly,” Wolf disagreed. “After the honeymoon, the baron returned to his customary knightly pursuits and left a very bored young lady wandering around his castle. It’s a situation with all kinds of interesting possibilities. Anyway, Mandorallen and the lady exchanged glances – then words – the usual sort of thing.”
“It happens in Sendaria too,” Durnik observed, “but I’m sure the name we have for it is different from the one they use here.” His tone was critical, even offended.
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Durnik,” Wolf told him. “Things never went any further. It might have been better if they had. Adultery isn’t really all that serious, and in time they’d have gotten bored with it. But, since they both loved and respected the baron too much to dishonor him, Mandorallen left the castle before things could get out of hand. Now they both suffer in silence. It’s all very touching, but it seems like a waste of time to me. Of course I’m older.”
“You’re older than everyone, father,” Aunt Pol said.
“You didn’t have to say that, Pol.”
Silk laughed sardonically. “I’m glad to see that our stupendous friend at least has the bad taste to fall in love with another man’s wife. His nobility was beginning to get rather cloying.” The little man’s expression had that bitter, self mocking cast to it Garion had first seen in Val Alorn when they had spoken with Queen Porenn.
“Does the baron know about it?” Durnik asked.
“Naturally,” Wolf replied. “That’s the part that makes the Arends get all mushy inside about it. There was a knight once, stupider than most Arends, who made a bad joke about it. The baron promptly challenged him and ran a lance through him during the duel. Since then very few people have found the situation humorous.”
“It’s still disgraceful,” Durnik said.
“Their behavior’s above reproach, Durnik,” Aunt Pol maintained firmly. “There’s no shame in it as long as it doesn’t go any further.”
“Decent people don’t allow it to happen in the first place,” Durnik asserted.
“You’ll never convince her, Durnik,” Mister Wolf told the smith. “Polgara spent too many years associating with the Wacite Arends. They were as bad or worse than the Mimbrates. You can’t wallow in that kind of sentimentality for that long without some of it rubbing off. Fortunately it hasn’t totally blotted out her good sense. She’s only occasionally girlish and gushy. If you can avoid her during those seizures, it’s almost as if there was nothing wrong with her.”
“My time was spent a little more usefully than yours, father,” Aunt Pol observed acidly. “As I remember, you spent those years carousing in the waterfront dives in Camaar. And then there was that uplifting period you spent amusing the depraved women of Maragor. I’m certain those experiences broadened your concept of morality enormously.”
Mister Wolf coughed uncomfortably and looked away.
Behind them, Mandorallen had remounted and begun to gallop back down the hill. The lady stood in the archway with her red cloak billowing in the wind, watching him as he rode away.
They were five days on the road before they reached the River Arend, the boundary between Arendia and Tolnedra. The weather improved as they moved farther south, and by the morning when they reached the hill overlooking the river, it was almost warm. The sun was very bright, and a few fleecy clouds raced overhead in the fresh breeze.
“The high road to Vo Mimbre branches to the left just there,” Mandorallen remarked.
“Yes,” Wolf said. “Let’s go down into that grove near the river and make ourselves a bit more presentable. Appearances are very important in Vo Mimbre, and we don’t want to arrive looking like vagabonds.”
Three brown-robed and hooded figures stood humbly at the crossroads, their faces down and their hands held out in supplication. Mister Wolf reined in his horse and approached them. He spoke with them briefly, then gave each a coin.
“Who are they?” Garion asked.
“Monks from Mar Terin,” Silk replied.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a monastery in southeastern Tolnedra where Maragor used to be,” Silk told him. “The monks try to comfort the spirits of the Marags.”
Mister Wolf motioned to them, and they rode on past the three humble figures at the roadside. “They say that no Murgos have passed here in the last two weeks.”
“Are you sure you can believe them?” Hettar asked.
“Probably. The monks won’t lie to anybody.”
“Then they’ll tell anybody who comes by that we’ve passed here?” Barak asked.
Wolf nodded. “They’ll answer any question anybody puts to them.”
“That’s an unsavory habit,” Barak grunted darkly.
Mister Wolf shrugged and led the way among the trees beside the river. “This ought to do,” he decided, dismounting in a grassy glade. He waited while the others climbed down from their horses. “All right,” he told them, “we’re going to Vo Mimbre. I want you all to be careful about what you say there. Mimbrates are very touchy, and the slightest word can be taken as an insult.”
“I think you should wear the white robe Fulrach gave you, father,” Aunt Pol interrupted, pulling open one of the packs.
“Please, Pol,” Wolf said, “I’m trying to explain something.”
“They heard you, father. You tend to belabor things too much.” She held up the white robe and looked at it critically. “You should have folded it more carefully. You’ve wrinkled it.”
“I’m not going to wear that thing,” he declared flatly.
“Yes, you are, father,” she told him sweetly. “We might have to argue about it for an hour or two, but you’ll wind up wearing it in the end anyway. Why not just save yourself all the time and aggravation?”
“It’s silly,” he complained.
“Lots of things are silly, father. I know the Arends better than you do. You’ll get more respect if you look the part. Mandorallen and Hettar and Barak will wear their armor; Durnik and Silk and Garion can wear the doublets Fulrach gave them in Sendar; I’ll wear my blue gown, and you’ll wear the white robe. I insist, father.”
“You what? Now listen here, Polgara-”
“Be still, father,” she said absently, examining Garion’s blue doublet.
Wolf’s face darkened, and his eyes bulged dangerously.
“Was there something else?” she asked with a level gaze.
Mister Wolf let it drop.
“He’s as wise as they say he is,” Silk observed.
An hour later they were on the high road to Vo Mimbre under a sunny sky. Mandorallen, once again in full armor and with a blue and silver pennon streaming from the tip of his lance, led the way with Barak in his gleaming mail shirt and black bearskin cape riding immediately behind him. At Aunt Pol’s insistence, the big Cherek had combed the tangles out of his red beard and even rebraided his hair. Mister Wolf in his white robe rode sourly, muttering to himself, and Aunt Pol sat her horse demurely at his side in a short, fur-lined cape and with a blue satin headdress surmounting the heavy mass of her dark hair. Garion and Durnik were ill at ease in their finery, but Silk wore his doublet and black velvet cap with a kind of exuberant flair. Hettar’s sole concession to formality had been the replacement of a ring of beaten silver for the leather thong which usually caught in his scalp lock.
The serfs and even the occasional knight they encountered along the way stood aside and saluted respectfully. The day was warm, the road was good, and their horses were strong. By midafternoon they crested a high hill overlooking the plain which sloped down to the gates of Vo Mimbre.
Chapter Ten
THE CITY OF THE MIMBRATE ARENDS reared almost like a mountain beside the sparkling river. Its thick, high walls were surmounted by massive battlements, and great towers and slender spires with bright banners at their tips rose within the walls, gleaming golden in the afternoon sun.
“Behold Vo Mimbre,” Mandorallen proclaimed with pride, “queen of cities. Upon that rock the tide of Angarak crashed and recoiled and crashed again. Upon this field met they their ruin. The soul and pride of Arendia loth reside within that fortress, and the power of the Dark One may not prevail against it.”
“We’ve been here before, Mandorallen,” Mister Wolf said sourly.
“Don’t be impolite, father,” Aunt Pol told the old man. Then she turned to Mandorallen and to Garion’s amazement she spoke in an idiom he had never heard from her lips before. “Wilt thou, Sir Knight, convey us presently into the palace of thy king? We must needs take council with him in matters of gravest urgency.” She delivered this without the least trace of self-consciousness as if the archaic formality came quite naturally to her. “Forasmuch as thou art the mightiest knight on life, we place ourselves under the protection of thy arm.”