“That’s no problem,” Silk assured him.
“What about me?” Ce’Nedra asked.
“You wanted to go to the Wood of the Dryads,” Aunt Pol told her. “We’re going in that direction anyway, so you’ll stay with us. We’ll see what Queen Xantha says when we get you there.”
“Am I to consider myself a prisoner then?” the princess asked stifliy.
“You can if it makes you feel better, dear,” Aunt Pol said. She looked at the tiny girl critically in the flickering firelight. “I’m going to have to do something about your hair, though. What did you use for dye? It looks awful.”
Chapter Nineteen
THEY MOVED RAPIDLY SOUTH for the next few days, traveling frequently at night to avoid the mounted patrols of legionnaires who were beating the countryside in their efforts to locate Ce’Nedra.
“Maybe we should have hung on to Jeebers,” Barak muttered sourly after one near-brush with the soldiers. “He’s roused every garrison from here to the border. It might have been better to have dropped him off in some isolated place or something.”
“That `or something’ has a certain ring of finality to it, old friend,” Silk said with a sharp little grin.
Barak shrugged. “It’s a solution to a problem.”
Silk laughed. “You really should try not to let your knife do all your thinking for you. That’s the one quality we find least attractive in our Cherek cousins.”
“And we find this compulsion to make clever remarks which seems to overwhelm our Drasnian brothers now and then almost equally unattractive,” Barak told him coolly.
“Nicely put,” Silk said with mock admiration.
They rode on, watchful, always ready to hide or to run. During those days they relied heavily on Hettar’s curious ability. Since the patrols searching for them were inevitably mounted, the tall, hawk-faced Algar swept their surroundings with his mind, searching for horses. The warnings he could thus provide usually gave them sufficient notice of the approach of the patrols.
“What’s it like?” Garion asked him one cloudy midmorning as they rode along a seldom-used and weed-grown track to which Silk had led them. “I mean being able to hear a horse’s thoughts?”
“I don’t think I can describe it exactly,” Hettar answered. “I’ve always been able to do it, so I can’t imagine what it’s like not doing it. There’s a kind of reaching-out in a horse’s mind – a sort of inclusiveness. A horse seems to think ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. I suppose it’s because in their natural condition they’re members of a herd. After they get to know you, they think of you as a herd mate. Sometimes they even forget that you’re not a horse.” He broke off suddenly. “Belgarath,” he announced sharply, “there’s another patrol coming just beyond that hill over there. Twenty or thirty of them.”
Mister Wolf looked about quickly. “Have we got time to reach those trees?” He pointed at a thick stand of scrub maple about a half mile ahead.
“If we hurry.”
“Then run!” Wolf ordered, and they all kicked their horses into a sudden burst of speed. They reached the trees just as the first few raindrops of the spring shower that had been threatening all morning pattered on the broad leaves. They dismounted and pushed in among the springy saplings, worming their way back out of sight, leading their horses.
The Tolnedran patrol came over the hilltop and swept down into the shallow valley. The captain in charge of the legionnaires pulled in his horse not far from the stand of maples and dispersed his men with a series of sharp commands. They moved out in small groups, scouting the weedy road in both directions and surveying the surrounding countryside from the top of the next rise. The officer and a civilian in a gray riding cloak remained behind, sitting their horses beside the track.
The captain squinted distastefully up into the sprinkling rain. “It’s going to be a wet day,” he said, dismounting and pulling his crimson cloak tighter around him.
His companion also swung down and turned so that the party hiding among the maples was able to see his face. Garion felt Hettar tense suddenly. The man in the cloak was a Murgo.
“Over here, Captain,” the Murgo said, leading his horse into the shelter provided by the outspreading limbs of the saplings at the edge of the stand.
The Tolnedran nodded and followed the man in the riding cloak. “Have you had a chance to think over my offer?” the Murgo asked.
“I thought it was only speculation,” the captain replied. “We don’t even know that these foreigners are in this quadrant.”
“My information is that they’re going south, captain,” the Murgo told him. “I think you can be quite certain that they’re somewhere in your quadrant.”
“There’s no guarantee that we’ll find them, though,” the captain said. “And even if we do, it’d be very difficult to do what you propose.”
“Captain,” the Murgo explained patiently, “it’s for the safety of the princess, after all. If she’s returned to Tol Honeth, the Vorduvians are going to kill her. You’ve read those documents I brought you.”
“She’ll be safe with the Borunes,” the captain said. “The Vorduvians aren’t going to come into Southern Tolnedra after her.”
“The Borunes are only going to turn her over to her father. You’re a Borune yourself. Would you defy an Emperor of your own house?” The captain’s face was troubled.
“Her only hope of safety is with the Horbites,” the Murgo pressed.
“What guarantees do I have that she’ll be safe with them?”
“The best guarantee of all – politics. The Horbites are doing everything in their power to block the Grand Duke Kador on his march to the throne. Since he wants the princess dead, the Horbites naturally want to keep her alive. It’s the only way really to insure her safety – and you become a wealthy man in the process.” He jingled a heavy purse suggestively.
The captain still looked doubtful.
“Suppose we double the amount,” the Murgo said in a voice that almost purred.
The captain swallowed hard. “It is for her safety, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is.”
“It’s not as if I were betraying the House of Borune.”
“You’re a patriot, Captain,” the Murgo assured the officer with a cold smile.
Aunt Pol was holding Ce’Nedra’s arm quite firmly as they crouched together among the trees. The tiny girl’s face was outraged, and her eyes were blazing.
Later, after the legionnaires and their Murgo friend had departed, the princess exploded. “How dare they?” she raged. “And for money!”
“That Tolnedran politics for you,” Silk said as they led their horses out of the stand of saplings into the drizzly morning.
“But he’s a Borune,” she protested, “a member of my own family.”
“A Tolnedran’s first loyalty is to his purse,” Silk told her. “I’m surprised you haven’t discovered that by now, your Highness.”
A few days later they topped a hill and saw the Wood of the Dryads spreading like a green smudge on the horizon. The showers had blown off, and the sun was very bright.
“We’ll be safe once we reach the Wood,” the princess told them. “The legions won’t follow us there.”
“What’s to stop them?” Garion asked her.
“The treaty with the Dryads,” she said. “Don’t you know anything?”
Garion resented that.
“There’s no one about,” Hettar reported to Mister Wolf. “We can go now or wait for dark.”
“Let’s make a run for it,” Wolf said. “I’m getting tired of dodging patrols.” They started down the hill at a gallop toward the forest lying ahead of them.
There seemed to be none of the usual brushy margin which usually marked the transition from fields to woodlands. The trees simply began. When Wolf led them beneath those trees, the change was as abrupt as if they had suddenly gone inside a house. The Wood itself was a forest of incredible antiquity. The great oaks spread so broadly that the sky was almost never visible. The forest floor was mossy and cool, and there was very little undergrowth. It seemed to Garion that they were all quite tiny under the vast trees, and there was a strange, hushed quality about the wood. The air was very still, and there was a hum of insects and, from far overhead, a chorus of birdsong.
“Strange,” Durnik said, looking around, “I don’t see any sign of woodcutters.”
“Woodcutters?” Ce’Nedra gasped. “In here? They wouldn’t dare come into this wood.”
“The wood is inviolate, Durnik,” Mister Wolf explained. “The Borune family has a treaty with the Dryads. No one has touched a tree here for over three thousand years.”
“This is a curious place,” Mandorallen said, looking around a bit uncomfortably. “Me thinks I feel a presence here – a presence not altogether friendly.”
“The Wood is alive,” Ce’Nedra told him. “It doesn’t really like strangers – but don’t worry, Mandorallen, you’re safe as long as you’re with me.” She sounded quite smug about it.