“We’ll see,” she said. “Sadi,” she called the eunuch.
“Yes, my Queen?”
“Take the boy. Have him bathed and perfumed. He smells of boats and tar and salt water. I don’t like such Alorn smells.”
“At once, Eternal Salmissra.”
Garion was led away to a place where there was warm water. His clothes were taken from him, and he was immersed and soaped and immersed again. Fragrant oils were rubbed into his skin, and a brief loincloth was tied about his waist. Then he was taken quite firmly by the chin and rouge was applied to his cheeks. It was during this process that he realized that the person painting his face was a woman. Slowly, almost incuriously, he let his eyes move around the bath chamber. He realized then that except for Sadi, everyone there was female. It seemed that something about that should bother him – something having to do with appearing naked in the presence of women – but he could not exactly remember what it was.
When the woman had finished painting his face, Sadi the eunuch took his arm and led him again through the dim, endless corridors back to the room where Salmissra half lay on her divan beneath the statue, admiring herself in the pedestaled mirror beside her.
“Much better,” she said, looking Garion up and down with a certain appreciation. “He’s much more muscular than I thought. Bring him here.”
Sadi led Garion to the side of the queen’s divan and gently pressed him down onto the cushions where Essia had lounged.
Salmissra reached out with a lingeringly slow hand and brushed her cold fingertips across his face and chest. Her pale eyes seemed to burn, and her lips parted slightly. Garion’s eyes fixed themselves on her pale arm. There was no trace of hair on that white skin.
“Smooth,” he said vaguely, struggling to focus on that peculiarity.
“Of course, my Belgarion,” she murmured. “Serpents are hairless, and I am the queen of the serpents.”
Slowly, puzzled, he raised his eyes to the lustrous black tresses tumbling down across one of her white shoulders.
“Only this,” she said, touching the curls with a sensuous kind of vanity.
“How?” he asked.
“It’s a secret.” She laughed. “Someday perhaps I’ll show you. Would you like that?”
“I suppose so.”
“Tell me, Belgarion,” she said, “do you think I’m beautiful?”
“I think so.”
“How old would you say I am?” She spread her arms so that he could see her body through the filmy gauze of her gown.
“I don’t know,” Garion said. “Older than I am, but not too old.” A brief flicker of annoyance crossed her face. “Guess,” she ordered somewhat harshly.
“Thirty perhaps,” he decided, confused.
“Thirty?” Her voice was stricken. Swiftly she turned to her mirror and examined her face minutely. “You’re blind, you idiot!” she snapped, still staring at herself in the glass. “That’s not the face of a woman of thirty. Twenty-three – twenty-five at the most.”
“Whatever you say,” he agreed.
“Twenty-three,” she stated firmly. “Not a single day over twentythree.”
“Of course,” he said mildly.
“Would you believe that I’m nearly sixty?” she demanded, her eyes suddenly flint-hard.
“No,” Garion denied. “I couldn’t believe that – not sixty.”
“What a charming boy you are, Belgarion,” she breathed at him, her glance melting. Her fingers returned to his face, touching, stroking, caressing. Slowly, beneath the pale skin of her naked shoulder and throat, curious patches of color began to appear, a faint mottling of green and purple that seemed to shift and pulsate, growing first quite visible and then fading. Her lips parted again, and her breathing grew faster. The mottling spread down her torso beneath her transparent gown, the colors seeming to writhe beneath her skin.
Maas crept nearer, his dead eyes suddenly coming awake with a strange adoration. The vivid pattern of his own scaly skin so nearly matched the colors that began to emerge upon the body of the Serpent Queen that when he draped a caressing coil across one of her shoulders it became impossible to say exactly where lay the boundary between the snake and the woman.
Had Garion not been in a half stupor, he would have recoiled from the queen. Her colorless eyes and mottled skin seemed reptilian, and her openly lustful expression spoke of some dreadful hunger. Yet there was a curious attraction about her. Helplessly he felt drawn by her blatant sensuality.
“Come closer, my Belgarion,” she ordered softly. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Her eyes gloated over her possession of him.
Not far from the dais, Sadi the eunuch cleared his throat. “Divine Queen,” he announced, “the emissary of Taur Urgas requests a word with you.”
“Of Ctuchik, you mean,” Salmissra said, looking faintly annoyed. Then a thought seemed to cross her mind, and she smiled maliciously. The mottling of her skin faded. “Bring the Grolim in,” she instructed Sadi.
Sadi bowed and withdrew to return a moment later with a scar-faced man in the garb of a Murgo.
“Give welcome to the emissary of Taur Urgas,” the eunuch chanted. “Welcome,” the chorus replied.
“Carefully now, “the dry voice in his mind said to Garion. “That’s the one we saw at the harbor. ”
Garion looked more carefully at the Murgo and realized that it was true.
“Hail, Eternal Salmissra,” the Grolim said perfunctorily, bowing first to the queen and then to the statue behind her. “Taur Urgas, King of Cthol Murgos, sends greetings to the Spirit of Issa and to his handmaiden.”
“And are there no greetings from Ctuchik, High Priest of the Grolims?” she asked, her eyes bright.
“Of course,” the Grolim said, “but those are customarily given in private.”
“Is your errand here on behalf of Taur Urgas or of Ctuchik?” she inquired, turning to examine her reflection in the mirror.
“May we speak in private, your Highness?” the Grolim asked. “We are in private,” she said.
“But-” He looked around at the kneeling eunuchs in the room.
“My body servants,” she said. “A Nyissan queen is never left alone. You should know that by now.”
“And that one?” The Grolim pointed at Garion.
“He is also a servant – but of a slightly different kind.”
The Grolim shrugged. “Whatever you wish. I salute you in the name of Ctuchik, High Priest of the Grolims and Disciple of Torak.”
“The Handmaiden of Issa salutes Ctuchik of Rak Cthol,” she responded formally. “What does the Grolim High Priest want of me?”
“The boy, your Highness,” the Grolim said bluntly.
“Which boy is that?”
“The boy you stole from Polgara and who now sits at your feet.”
She laughed scornfully. “Convey my regrets to Ctuchik,” she said, “but that would be impossible.”
“It’s unwise to deny the wishes of Ctuchik,” the Grolim warned.
“It’s even more unwise to make demands of Salmissra in her own palace,” she said. “What is Ctuchik prepared to offer for this boy?”
“His eternal friendship.”
“What need has the Serpent Queen of friends?”
“Gold, then,” the Grolim offered with annoyance.
“I know the secret of the red gold of Angarak,” she told him. “I don’t wish to become a slave to it. Keep your gold, Grolim.”
“Might I say that the game you play is very dangerous, your Highness?” the Grolim said coolly. “You’ve already made Polgara your enemy. Can you afford the enmity of Ctuchik as well?”
“I’m not afraid of Polgara,” she answered. “Nor of Ctuchik.”
“The queen’s bravery is remarkable,” he said dryly.
“This is beginning to get tiresome. My terms are very simple. Tell Ctuchik that I have Torak’s enemy, and I will keep him – unless-” She paused.
“Unless what, your Highness?”
“If Ctuchik will speak to Torak for me, an agreement might be reached.”
“What sort of agreement?”
“I will give the boy to Torak as a wedding gift.”
The Grolim blinked.
“If Torak will make me his bride and give me immortality, I will deliver Belgarion up to him.”
“All the world knows that the Dragon God of Angarak is bound in slumber,” the Grolim objected.
“But he will not sleep forever,” Salmissra said flatly. “The priests of Angarak and the sorcerers of Aloria always seem to forget that Eternal Salmissra can read the signs in the heavens as clearly as they. The day of Torak’s awakening is at hand. Tell Ctuchik that upon the day that I am wed to Torak, Belgarion will be in his hands. Until that day, the boy is mine.”
“I shall deliver your message to Ctuchik,” the Grolim said with a stiff, icy bow.
“Leave, then,” she told him with an airy wave of her hand.
“So that is it, ” the voice in Garion’s mind said as the Grolim left. “I should have known, I suppose.”
Maas the serpent suddenly raised his head, his great neck flaring and his eyes burning. “Beware!” he hissed.
“Of the Grolim?” Salmissra laughed. “I have nothing to fear from him.”
“Not the Grolim,” Maas said. “That one.” He flickered his tongue at Garion. “Its mind is awake.”