“I thought so too,” Garion said, “but they don’t usually circle, do they?”
Durnik frowned. “Maybe it’s watching something on the ground.”
“How long has it been up there?” Wolf asked, squinting up at the large bird.
“I think I first saw it when we were crossing the field.” Garion told him.
Mister Wolf glanced over at Aunt Pol. “What do you think?”
She looked up from one of Garion’s stockings she had been mending. “I’ll see.” Her face took on a strange, probing expression.
Garion felt a peculiar tingling again. On an impulse he tried to push his own mind out toward the bird.
“Garion,” Aunt Pol said without looking at him, “stop that.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly and pulled his mind back where it belonged.
Mister Wolf looked at him with a strange expression, then winked at him.
“It’s Chamdar,” Aunt Pol announced calmly. She carefully pushed her needle into the stocking and set it aside. Then she stood up and shook off her blue cloak.
“What have you got in mind?” Wolf asked.
“I think I’ll go have a little chat with him,” she replied, flexing her fingers like talons.
“You’d never catch him,” Wolf told her. “Your feathers are too soft for this kind of wind. There’s an easier way.” The old man swept the windy sky with a searching gaze. “Over there.” He pointed at a barely visible speck above the hills to the west. “You’d better do it, Pol. I don’t get along with birds.”
“Of course, father,” she agreed. She looked intently at the speck, and Garion felt the tingle as she sent her mind out again. The speck began to circle, rising higher and higher until it disappeared.
The raven did not see the plummeting eagle until the last instant, just before the larger bird’s talons struck. There was a sudden puff of black feathers, and the raven, screeching with fright, flapped wildly away with the eagle in pursuit.
“Nicely done, Pol,” Wolf approved.
“It will give him something to think about.” She smiled. “Don’t stare, Durnik.”
Durnik was gaping at her, his mouth open. “How did you do that?”
“Do you really want to know?” she asked.
Durnik shuddered and looked away quickly.
“I think that just about settles it,” Wolf said. “Disguises are probably useless now. I’m not sure what Chamdar’s up to, but he’s going to be watching us every step of the way. We might as well arm ourselves and ride straight on to Vo Mimbre.”
“Aren’t we going to follow the trail anymore?” Barak asked.
“The trail goes south,” Wolf replied. “I can pick it up again once we cross over into Tolnedra. But first I want to stop by and have a word with King Korodullin. There are some things he needs to know.”
“Korodullin?” Durnik looked puzzled. “Wasn’t that the name of the first Arendish king? It seems to me somebody told me that once.”
“All Arendish kings are named Korodullin,” Silk told him. “And the queens are all named Mayaserana. It’s part of the fiction the royal family here maintains to keep the kingdom from flying apart. They have to marry as closely within the bloodline as possible to maintain the illusion of the unification of the houses of Mimbre and Asturia. It makes them all a bit sickly, but there’s no help for it – considering the peculiar nature of Arendish politics.”
“All right, Silk,” Aunt Pol said reprovingly.
Mandorallen looked thoughtful. “Could it be that this Chamdar who so dogs our steps is one of great substance in the dark society of the Grolims?” he asked.
“He’d like to be,” Wolf answered. “Zedar and Ctuchik are Torak’s disciples, and Chamdar wants to be one as well. He’s always been Ctuchik’s agent, but he may believe that this is his chance to move up in the Grolim hierarchy. Ctuchik’s very old, and he spends all his time in the temple of Torak at Rak Cthol. Maybe Chamdar thinks it’s time that someone else became High Priest.”
“Is Torak’s body at Rak Cthol?” Silk asked quickly.
Mister Wolf shrugged. “Nobody knows for sure, but I doubt it. After Zedar carried him away from the battlefield at Vo Mimbre, I don’t think he’d have just handed him over to Ctuchik. He could be in Mallorea or somewhere in the southern reaches of Cthol Murgos. It’s hard to say.”
“But at the moment, Chamdar’s the one we have to worry about,” Silk concluded.
“Not if we keep moving,” Wolf told him.
“We’d better get moving then,” Barak said, standing up.
By midmorning the heavy clouds had begun to break up, and patches of blue sky showed here and there. Enormous pillars of sunlight stalked ponderously across the rolling fields that waited, damp and expectant, for the first touches of spring. With Mandorallen in the lead they had ridden hard and had covered a good six leagues. Finally they slowed to a walk to allow their steaming horses to rest.
“How much farther is it to Vo Mimbre, grandfather?” Garion asked, pulling his horse in beside Mister Wolf.
“Sixty leagues at least,” Wolf answered. “Probably closer to eighty.”
“That’s a long way.” Garion winced as he shifted in his saddle.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry I ran away like that back there,” Garion apologized.
“It wasn’t your fault. Chamdar was playing games.”
“Why did he pick me? Couldn’t he have done the same thing to Durnik – or Barak?”
Mister Wolf looked at him. “You’re younger, more susceptible.”
“That’s not really it, is it?” Garion accused.
“No,” Wolf admitted, “not really, but it’s an answer, of sorts.”
“This is another one of those things you aren’t going to tell me, isn’t it?”
“I suppose you could say that,” Wolf answered blandly.
Garion sulked about that for a while, but Mister Wolf rode on, seemingly unconcerned by the boy’s reproachful silence.
They stopped that night at a Tolnedran hostel, which, like all of them, was plain, adequate, and expensive. The next morning the sky had cleared except for billowy patches of white cloud scampering before the brisk wind. The sight of the sun made them all feel better, and there was even some bantering between Silk and Barak as they rode along – something Garion hadn’t heard in all the weeks they’d spent traveling under the gloomy skies of northern Arendia.
Mandorallen, however, scarcely spoke that morning, and his face grew more somber with each passing mile. He was not wearing his armor, but instead a mail suit and a deep blue surcoat. His head was bare, and the wind tugged at his curly hair.
On a nearby hilltop a bleak-looking castle brooded down at them as they passed, its grim walls high and haughty-looking. Mandorallen seemed to avoid looking at it, and his face became even more melancholy.
Garion found it difficult to make up his mind about Mandorallen. He was honest enough with himself to admit that much of his thinking was still clouded by Lelldorin’s prejudices. He didn’t really want to like Mandorallen; but aside from the habitual gloominess which seemed characteristic of all Arends and the studied and involuted archaism of the man’s speech and his towering self confidence, there seemed little actually to dislike.
A half league along the road from the castle, a ruin sat at the top of a long rise. It was not much more than a single wall with a high archway in the center and broken columns on either side. Near the ruin a woman sat on horseback, her dark red cape flowing in the wind.
Without a word, almost without seeming to think about it, Mandorallen turned his warhorse from the road and cantered up the rise toward the woman, who watched his approach without any seeming surprise, but also with no particular pleasure.
“Where’s he going?” Barak asked.
“She’s an acquaintance of his,” Mister Wolf said dryly.
“Are we supposed to wait for him?”
“He can catch up with us,” Wolf replied.
Mandorallen had stopped his horse near the woman and dismounted. He bowed to her and held out his hands to help her down from her horse. They walked together toward the ruin, not touching, but walking very close to each other. They stopped beneath the archway and talked. Behind the ruin, clouds raced in the windy sky, and their enormous shadows swept uncaring across the mournful fields of Arendia.
“We should have taken a different route,” Wolf said. “I wasn’t thinking, I guess.”
“Is there some problem?” Durnik asked.
“Nothing unusual – in Arendia,” Wolf answered. “I suppose it’s my fault. Sometimes I forget the kind of things that can happen to young people.”
“Don’t be cryptic, father,” Aunt Pol told him. “It’s very irritating. Is this something we should know about?”
Wolf shrugged. “It isn’t any secret,” he replied. “Half of Arendia knows about it. A whole generation of Arendish virgins cry themselves to sleep every night over it.”
“Father,” Aunt Pol snapped exasperatedly.
“All right,” Wolf said. “When Mandorallen was about Garion’s age, he showed a great deal of promise-strong, courageous, not too bright the qualities that make a good knight. His father asked me for advice, and I made arrangements for the young man to live for a while with the Baron of Vo Ebor – that’s his castle back there. The baron had an enormous reputation, and he provided Mandorallen with the kind of instruction he needed. Mandorallen and the baron became almost like father and son, since the baron was quite a bit older. Everything was going along fine until the baron got married. His bride, however, was much younger – about Mandorallen’s age.”