Ce'Nedra, once she had finally accepted her duty, had assumed that speaking in public would grow easier with practice. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Panic still gripped her before each speech, and quite frequently she was physically sick. Although Polgara assured her that her speeches were getting better, Ce'Nedra complained that they were not getting easier. The drain on her physical and emotional reserves became more and more evident. Like most girls her age, Ce'Nedra could and often did talk endlessly, but her orations were not random talk. They required an enormous control and a tremendous expenditure of emotional energy, and no one could help her.
As the crowds grew larger, however, Polgara did provide some aid in a purely technical matter. "Just speak in a normal tone of voice, Ce'Nedra," she instructed. "Don't exhaust yourself by trying to shout. I'll see to it that everybody can hear you." Aside from that, however, the princess was on her own, and the strain became more and more visible. She rode listlessly at the head of her growing army, seeming sometimes almost to be in a trance.
Her friends watched her and worried.
"I'm not sure how much longer she can keep up this pace," King Fulrach confided to King Rhodar as they rode directly behind the drooping little queen toward the ruins of Vo Wacune, where she was to address yet another gathering. "I think we tend sometimes to forget how small and delicate she is."
"Maybe we'd better consult with Polgara," King Rhodar agreed. "I think the child needs a week's rest."
Ce'Nedra, however, knew that she could not stop. There was a momentum to this, a kind of accelerating rhythm that could not be broken. At first, word of her coming had spread slowly, but now it ran ahead of them, and she knew they must run faster and faster to keep up with it. There was a crucial point at which the curiosity about her must be satisfied or the whole thing would collapse and she'd have to begin all over again.
The crowd at Vo Wacune was the largest she had yet addressed. Half convinced already, they needed only a single spark to ignite them. Once again sick with unreasoning panic, the Rivan Queen gathered her strength and rose to address them and to set them aflame with her call to war.
When it was over and the young nobles had been gathered into the growing ranks of the army, Ce'Nedra sought a few moments of solitude on the outskirts of the camp to compose herself. This had become a kind of necessary ritual for her. Sometimes she was sick after a speech and sometimes she wept. Sometimes she merely wandered listlessly, not even seeing the trees about her. At Polgara's instruction, Durnik always accompanied her, and Ce'Nedra found the company of this solid, practical man strangely comforting.
They had walked some distance from the ruins. The afternoon was bright and sunny, and birds sang among the trees. Pensively, Ce'Nedra walked, letting the peace of the forest quiet the agitated turmoil within her.
"It's all very well for noblemen, Detton," she heard someone say somewhere on the other side of a thicket, "but what does it have to do with us?"
"You're probably right, Lammer," a second voice agreed with a regretful sigh. "It was very stirring, though, wasn't it?"
"The only thing that ought to stir a serf is the sight of something to eat," the first man declared bitterly. "The little girl can talk all she wants about duty, but my only duty is to my stomach." He stopped abruptly. "Are the leaves of that plant over there fit to eat?" he asked.
"I think they're poisonous, Lammer," Detton replied.
"But you're not sure? I'd hate to pass up something I could eat if there was any chance that it wouldn't kill me."
Ce'Nedra listened to the two serfs with growing horror. Could anybody be reduced to that level? Impulsively, she stepped around the thicket to confront them. Durnik, as always, stayed close by her side.
The two serfs were dressed in mud-spattered rags. They were both men of middle years, and there was no evidence on their faces that either of them had ever known a happy day. The leaner of the two was closely examining a thick-leafed weed, but the other saw Ce'Nedra approaching and started with obvious fright. "Lammer." He gasped. "It's her - the one who spoke today."
Lammer straightened, his gaunt face going pale beneath the dirt that smudged it. "Your Ladyship," he said, grotesquely trying to bow. "We were just on our way back to our villages. We didn't know this part of the forest was yours. We didn't take anything." He held out his empty hands as if to prove his words.
"How long has it been since you've had anything to eat?" she demanded of him.
"I ate some grass this morning, your Ladyship," Lammer replied, "and I had a couple of turnips yesterday. They were a little wormy, but not too bad."
Ce'Nedra's eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Who's done this to you?" she asked him.
Lammer looked a little confused at her question. Finally he shrugged slightly. "The world, I guess, your Ladyship. A certain part of what we raise goes to our lord, and a certain part to his lord. Then there's the part that has to go to the king and the part that has to go to the royal governor. And we're still paying for some wars my lord had a few years ago. After all of that's been paid, there isn't very much left for us."
A horrible thought struck her. "I'm gathering an army for a campaign in the East," she told them.
"Yes, your Ladyship," the other serf, Detton, replied. "We heard your speech today."
"What will that do to you?"
Detton shrugged. "It will mean more taxes, your Ladyship - and some of our sons will be taken for soldiers if our lords decide to join you. Serfs don't really make very good soldiers, but they can always carry baggage. And when the time comes to storm a castle, the nobility seem to want to have a lot of serfs around to help with the dying."
"Then you never feel any patriotism when you go to war?"
"What could patriotism have to do with serfs, my Lady?" Lammer asked her. "Until a month or so ago I didn't even know the name of my country. None of it belongs to me. Why should I have any feelings about it?"
Ce'Nedra could not answer that question. Their lives were so bleak, so hopelessly empty, and her call to war meant only greater hardship and more suffering for them. "What about your families?" she asked. "If Torak wins, the Grolims will come and slaughter your families on his altars."
"I have no family, my Lady," Lammer replied in a dead voice. "My son died several years ago. My lord was fighting a war somewhere, and when they attacked a castle, the people inside poured boiling pitch down on the serfs who were trying to raise a ladder. My wife starved herself to death after she heard about it. The Grolims can't hurt either one of them now, and if they want to kill me, they're welcome to."
"Isn't there anything at all you'd be willing to fight for?"
"Food, I suppose," Lammer said after a moment's thought. "I'm very tired of being hungry."
Ce'Nedra turned to the other serf. "What about you?" she asked him.
"I'd walk into fire for somebody who fed me," Detton replied fervently.
"Come with me," Ce'Nedra commanded them, and she turned and led the way back to the camp and the large, bulky supply wagons that had transported the vast quantities of food from the storehouses of Sendaria. "I want these two men fed," she told a startled cook. "As much as they can eat."
Durnik, however, his honest eyes brimming with compassion, had already reached into one of the wagons and taken out a large loaf of bread. He tore it in two and gave half to Lammer and half to Detton.
Lammer stared at the chunk of bread in his hands, trembling violently. "I'll follow you, my Lady," he declared in a quavering voice. "I've eaten my shoes and lived on boiled grass and tree roots." His fists closed about the chunk of bread as if he were afraid someone might take it away from him. "I'll follow you to the end of the world and back for this." And he began to eat, tearing at the bread with his teeth.
Ce'Nedra stared at him, and then she suddenly fled. By the time she reached her tent she was weeping hysterically. Adara and Taiba tried without success to comfort her, and finally they sent for Polgara.
When the sorceress arrive
d, she took one brief look and asked Taiba and Adara to leave her alone with the sobbing girl. "All right, Ce'Nedra," she said calmly, sitting on the bed and gathering the princess in her arms, "what's this all about?"
"I can't do it any more, Lady Polgara," Ce'Nedra cried. "I just can't."
"It was your idea in the first place," Polgara reminded her.
"I was wrong." Ce'Nedra sobbed. "Wrong, wrong! I should have stayed in Riva."
"No," Polgara disagreed. "You've done something that none of the rest of us could have. You've guaranteed us the Arends. I'm not even sure Garion could have done that."
"But they're all going to die!" Ce'Nedra wailed.
"Where did you get that idea?"
"The Angaraks are going to outnumber us at least two to one. They'll butcher my army."
"Who told you that?"
"I - I listened," Ce'Nedra replied, fumbling with the amulet at her throat. "I heard what Rhodar, Anheg, and the others said when they heard about the southern Murgos."
"I see," Polgara said gravely.
"We're going to throw away our lives. Nothing can save us. And just now I even found a way to bring the serfs into it. Their lives are so miserable that they'll follow me just for the chance to eat regularly. And I'll do it, Lady Polgara. If I think I might need them, I'll deliberately take them from their homes and lead them to their deaths. I can't help myself."
Polgara took a glass from a nearby table and emptied a small glass vial into it. "The war isn't over yet, Ce'Nedra. It hasn't even begun." She swirled the dark amber liquid around in the bottom of the glass. "I've seen hopeless wars won before. If you give in to despair before you begin, you'll have no chance at all. Rhodar's a very clever tactician, you know, and the men in your army are very brave. We won't commit to any battle until we absolutely have to, and if Garion can reach Torak in time - and if he wins - the Angaraks will fall apart, and we won't have to fight them at all. Here." She held out the glass. "Drink this."
Numbly, Ce'Nedra took the glass and drank. The amber liquid was bitter, and it left a strange, fiery aftertaste in her mouth. "It all depends on Garion, then," she said.
"It always has depended on him, dear," Polgara told her.
Ce'Nedra sighed. "I wish-" she began, then faltered to a stop.
"Wish what, dear?"
"Oh, Lady Polgara, I never once told Garion that I love him. I'd give anything to be able to tell him that just once."
"He knows, Ce'Nedra."
"But it's not the same." Ce'Nedra sighed again. A strange lassitude had begun to creep over her, and she had stopped crying. It was difficult somehow even to remember why she had been weeping. She suddenly felt eyes on her and turned. Errand sat quietly in the corner watching her. His deep blue eyes were filled with sympathy and, oddly, with hope. And then Polgara took the princess in her arms and began rocking slowly back and forth and humming a soothing kind of melody. Without knowing when it happened, Ce'Nedra fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The attempt on her life came the following morning. Her army was marching south from Vo Wacune, passing through the sunlit forest along the Great West Road. The princess was riding at the head of the column, talking with Barak and Mandorallen, when an arrow, buzzing spitefully, came out of the trees. It was the buzz that gave Barak an instant of warning. "Look out!" he shouted, suddenly covering Ce'Nedra with his great shield. The arrow shattered against it, and Barak, cursing horribly, drew his sword.
Brand's youngest son, Olban, however, was already plunging at a dead run into the forest. His face had gone deathly pale, and his sword seemed to leap into his hand as he spun his horse. The sound of his galloping mount faded back among the trees. After several moments, there was a dreadful scream.
Shouts of alarm came from the army behind them and a confused babble of voices. Polgara rode forward, her face white.
"I'm all right, Lady Polgara," Ce'Nedra assured her quickly. "Barak saved me."
"What happened?" Polgara demanded.
"Someone shot an arrow at her," Barak growled. "If I hadn't heard it buzz, it might have been very bad."
Lelldorin had picked up the shattered arrow shaft and was looking at it closely. "The fletching is loose," he said, rubbing his finger over the feathers. "That's what made it buzz like that."
Olban came riding back out of the forest, his bloody sword still in his hand. "Is the queen safe?" he demanded; for some reason, his voice seemed on the verge of hysteria.
"She's fine," Barak said, looking at him curiously.
"Who was it?"
"A Murgo, I think," Olban replied. "He had scars on his cheeks."
"Did you kill him?"
Olban nodded. "Are you sure you're all right, my Queen?" he asked Ce'Nedra. His pale, blond hair was tousled, and he seemed very young and very earnest.
"I'm just fine, Olban," she replied. "You were very brave, but you should have waited instead of riding off alone like that. There might have been more than one."
"Then I'd have killed them all," Olban declared fiercely. "I'll destroy anyone who even raises a finger against you." The young man was actually trembling with rage.
"Thy dedication becomes thee, young Olban," Mandorallen told him.
"I think we'd better put out some scouts," Barak suggested to King Rhodar. "At least until we get out of these trees. Korodullin was going to chase all the Murgos out of Arendia, but it looks as if he missed a few."
"Let me lead the scouting parties," Olban begged.
"Your son has a great deal of enthusiasm," Rhodar observed to Brand. "I like that in a young man." He turned back to Olban. "All right," he said. "Take as many men as you need. I don't want any Murgos within five miles of the princess."
"You have my word on it," Olban declared, wheeling his horse and plunging back into the forest.
They rode a bit more cautiously after that, and archers were placed strategically to watch the crowd when Ce'Nedra spoke. Olban rather grimly reported that a few more Murgos had been flushed out of the trees ahead of them, but there were no further incidents.
It was very nearly the first day of summer when they rode out of the forest onto the central Arendish plain. Ce'Nedra by that time had gathered nearly every able-bodied Asturian into her army, and her hosts spread out behind her in a sea of humanity as she led the way out onto the plain. The sky above was very blue as they left the trees behind, and the grass was very green beneath the hooves of their horses.
"And where now, your Majesty?" Mandorallen inquired.
"To Vo Mimbre," Ce'Nedra replied. "I'll speak to the Mimbrate knights, and then we'll go on to Tolnedra."
"I hope your father still loves you, Ce'Nedra," King Rhodar said. "It will take a lot of love to make Ran Borune forgive you for entering Tolnedra with this army at your back."
"He adores me," Ce'Nedra assured him confidently. King Rhodar still looked dubious.
The army marched down through the plains of central Arendia toward the capital at Vo Mimbre where King Korodullin had assembled the Mimbrate knights and their retainers. The weather continued fair, and they marched in bright sunshine.
One sunny morning shortly after they had set out, Lady Polgara rode forward and joined Ce'Nedra at the head of the column. "Have you decided how you're going to deal with your father yet?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," the princess confessed. "He's probably going to be extremely difficult."
"The Borunes usually are."
"I'm a Borune, Lady Polgara."
"I know." Polgara looked penetratingly at the princess. "You've grown considerably in the past few months, dear," she observed.
"I didn't really have much choice, Lady Polgara. This all came on rather suddenly." Ce'Nedra giggled then as a thought suddenly struck her. "Poor Garion." She laughed.
"Why poor Garion?"
"I was horrid to him, wasn't I?"
"Moderately horrid, yes."
"How were any of you able to stand me?"
"We clenched our teeth fre
quently."
"Do you think he'd be proud of me - if he knew what I'm doing, I mean?"
"Yes," Polgara told her, "I think he would be."
"I'm going to make it all up to him, you know," Ce'Nedra promised. "I'm going to be the best wife in the world."
"That's nice, dear."
"I won't scold or shout or anything."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Ce'Nedra," Polgara said wisely.
"Well," the little princess amended, "almost never anyway."
Polgara smiled. "We'll see."
The Mimbrate knights were encamped on the great plain before the city of Vo Mimbre. Together with their men-at-arms, they comprised a formidable army, glittering in the sunlight.
"Oh dear," Ce'Nedra faltered as she stared down at the vast gathering from the hilltop where she and the Alorn Kings had ridden to catch the first glimpse of the city.
"What's the problem?" Rhodar asked her.
"There are so many of them."
"That's the whole idea, isn't it?"
A tall Mimbrate knight with dark hair and beard, wearing a black velvet surcoat over his polished armor, galloped up the hill and reined in some yards before them. He looked from face to face, then inclined his head in a polite bow. He turned to Mandorallen. "Greetings to the Bastard of Vo Mandor from Korodullin, King of Arendia."
"You still haven't gotten that straightened out, have you?" Barak muttered to Mandorallen.
"I have not had leisure, my Lord," Mandorallen replied. He turned to the knight. "Hail and well-met, Sir Andorig. I pray thee, convey our greetings to his Majesty and advise him that we come in peace - which he doubtless doth know already."
"I will, Sir Mandorallen," Andorig responded.
"How's your apple tree doing, Andorig?" Barak asked, grinning openly.
"It doth flourish, my Lord of Trellheim," Andorig answered proudly. "My care for it hath been most tender, and I have hopes of a bounteous harvest. I am confident that I have not disappointed Holy Belgarath." He turned and clattered back down the hill, sounding his horn every hundred yards or so.