‘Cross?’ Ce’Nedra said. ‘Cross where?’
‘To the south bank of the Nedrane,’ Velvet replied.
‘But we’re still inside the city walls.’
‘Actually, we’re under the city wall, Ce’Nedra. The only thing between us and the river are two of the marble slabs that form the exterior facing.’
There came then the clanking of a heavy windlass somewhere in the dimness, and the front wall of the subterranean harbor creaked slowly open, dividing in the middle and swinging ponderously on great, well-greased iron hinges. Through the opening between the two slowly moving stone slabs, Garion could see the rain-dimpled surface of the river moving slowly by with its far shore lost in the dripping fog.
‘Very clever,’ Belgarath said. ‘How long has this house been here?’
‘Centuries,’ Velvet replied. ‘It was built to provide just about anything anyone could desire. Occasionally, one of the customers wants to leave—or enter—the city unobserved. That’s what this place is for.’
‘How did you find out about it?’ Garion asked her.
She shrugged. ‘Bethra owned the house. She told Javelin about its secrets.’
Silk sighed. ‘She even reaches out from the grave to help us.’
They were ferried in pairs across the foggy, rain-swept expanse of the Nedrane to land on a narrow, mist-shrouded sand beach backed by a thicket of willows. When Velvet finally joined them, it was perhaps three hours past midnight. ‘The oarsmen will brush our tracks out of the sand,’ she told them. ‘It’s part of the service.’
‘Did this cost very much?’ Silk asked her.
‘A great deal, actually, but it comes out of the budget of the Drasnian Embassy. Your cousin didn’t like that too much, but I persuaded him to pay—finally.’
Silk grinned viciously.
‘We have a few hours left until daylight,’ Velvet continued. ‘There’s a wagon road on the other side of these willows, and it joins the Imperial Highway about a mile or so downriver. We should probably travel at a walk until we’re out of earshot of the city. The legionnaires at the south gate might become curious if they hear galloping.’
They mounted their horses in the soggy darkness and rode through the willows, down onto the muddy wagon track. Garion pulled his horse in beside Silk’s. ‘What was going on in that place?’ he asked curiously.
‘Almost anything you could imagine.’ Silk laughed. ‘And probably a number of things you couldn’t. It’s a very interesting house with all sorts of diversions for people with enough money to be able to afford them.’
‘Did you recognize anybody there?’
‘Several, actually—some highly respected members of the noble houses of the Empire.’
Ce’Nedra, who rode directly behind them, sniffed disdainfully. ‘I cannot understand why any man would choose to frequent that sort of place.’
‘The customers are not exclusively male, Ce’Nedra,’ Silk told her.
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘A fair number of the highborn ladies of Tol Honeth have found all kinds of interesting ways to relieve their boredom. They wear masks, of course—although very little else. I recognized one countess, however—one of the pillars of the Horbite family.’
‘If she was wearing a mask, how could you recognize her?’
‘She has a distinctive birthmark—in a place where it’s seldom seen. Some years back, she and I were quite friendly, and she showed it to me.’
There was a long silence. ‘I don’t know that I really want to discuss this any more,’ Ce’Nedra said primly and nudged her horse past them to join Polgara and Velvet.
‘She did ask,’ Silk protested innocently to Garion. ‘You heard her, didn’t you?’
They rode south for several days in clearing weather. Erastide had passed virtually unnoticed while they were on the road, and Garion felt a strange kind of regret about that. Since his earliest childhood, the midwinter holiday had been one of the high points of the year. To allow it to pass unobserved seemed somehow to violate something very sacred. He wished that there might have been time to buy something special for Ce’Nedra, but about the best he could manage in the way of a gift was a tender kiss.
Some leagues above Tol Borune, they met a richly dressed couple riding north toward the Imperial Capital, accompanied by a dozen or so liveried servants. ‘You there, fellow,’ the velvet-clad nobleman called condescendingly to Silk, who happened to be riding in the lead, ‘what news from Tol Honeth?’
‘The usual, your Lordship,’ Silk replied obsequiously. ‘Assassinations, plots, and intrigues—the normal amusements of the highborn.’
‘I don’t care much for your tone, fellow,’ the nobleman said.
‘And I don’t care much for being called “fellow,” either.’
‘We’ve heard such amazing stories,’ the giddy-looking lady in a fur-lined red velvet cape said breathlessly. ‘Is it true that someone is actually trying to kill all the Honeths? We heard that whole families have been murdered in their beds.’
‘Balera,’ her husband said in disgust, ‘you’re just repeating wild rumors. What could a seedy-looking commoner like this know about what’s really happening in the capital? I’m sure that if there were any substance to those wild stories, Naradas would have told us.’
‘Naradas?’ Silk’s eyes suddenly filled with interest. ‘An Angarak merchant with colorless eyes?’
‘You know him?’ the nobleman asked with some surprise.
‘I know of him, your Lordship,’ Silk replied carefully. ‘It’s not wise to go around announcing that you’re acquainted with that one. You did know that the Emperor has put a price on his head, didn’t you?’
‘Naradas? Impossible!’
‘I’m sorry, your Honor, but it’s common knowledge all over Tol Honeth. If you know where to put your hands on him, you can earn yourself a thousand gold crowns without much effort.’
‘A thousand crowns!’
Silk looked around conspiratorially. ‘I wouldn’t want this to go any further,’ he said in a half whisper, ‘but it’s widely rumored in Tol Honeth that those gold coins he’s so free with are false.’
‘False?’ the noble exclaimed, his eyes suddenly bulging.
‘Very clever imitations,’ Silk continued. ‘Just enough gold is mixed with baser metals to make the coins look authentic, but they aren’t worth a tenth of their face value.’
The noble’s face turned pasty white, and he clutched involuntarily at the purse attached to his belt.
‘It’s all part of a plot to destroy the Tolnedran economy by debasing the coinage,’ Silk added. ‘The Honeths were involved in it in some way, and that’s why they’re all being murdered. Of course, anyone caught with any of those coins in his possession is immediately hanged.’
‘What?’
‘Naturally.’ Silk shrugged. ‘The Emperor intends to root out this monstrous business immediately. Stern measures are absolutely essential.’
‘I’m ruined!’ the nobleman groaned. ‘Quickly, Balera!’ he said, wheeling his horse, ‘we must return to Tol Borune at once!’ And he led his frightened wife back southward at a dead run.
‘Don’t you want to hear about which kingdom was behind it all?’ Silk called after them. Then he doubled over in his saddle, convulsed with laughter.
‘Brilliant, Prince Kheldar,’ Velvet murmured admiringly.
‘This Naradas moves around quite a bit, doesn’t he?’ Durnik said.
‘I think I just put a bit of an anchor on him,’ Silk smirked. ‘Once that rumor spreads, I expect that he’s going to have a little trouble spending his money—not to mention the interest that reward I mentioned is going to generate in certain quarters.’
‘That was a dreadful thing you did to that poor nobleman, though,’ Velvet said disapprovingly. ‘He’s on his way back to Tol Borune to empty out all his strongboxes and bury the money.’
Silk shrugged. ‘That’s what he gets for consorting with Anga
raks. Shall we press on?’
They passed Tol Borune without stopping and rode on south toward the Wood of the Dryads. When the ancient forest came into view on the southern horizon, Polgara pulled her horse in beside the mount of the dozing Belgarath. ‘I think we should stop by and pay our respects to Xantha, father,’ she said.
The old man roused himself and squinted in the direction of the Wood. ‘Maybe,’ he grunted doubtfully.
‘We owe her the courtesy, father, and it’s not really out of our way.’
‘All right, Pol,’ he said, ‘but just a brief stop. We’re months behind Zandramas already.’
They crossed the last band of open fields and rode in under the ancient, mossy oaks. The leaves had fallen to the chill winds of winter, and the bare limbs of the huge trees were starkly etched against the sky.
A peculiar change came over Ce’Nedra as they entered the Wood. Although it was still not really warm, she pushed back the hood of her cloak and shook out her coppery curls, causing her tiny, acorn-shaped gold earrings to tinkle musically. Her face became strangely calm, no longer mirroring the sorrow that had marked it since the abduction of her son. Her eyes became soft, almost unfocused. ‘I have returned,’ she murmured into the quiet air beneath the spreading trees.
Garion felt, rather than heard, the soft, murmuring response. From all around him he seemed to hear a sibilant sighing, although there was no trace of a breeze. The sighing was almost like a chorus, joining just below the level of hearing into a quiet, mournful song, a song filled with a gentle regret and at the same time an abiding hope.
‘Why are they sad?’ Eriond quietly asked Ce’Nedra.
‘Because it’s winter,’ she replied. ‘They mourn the falling of their leaves and regret the fact that the birds have all flown south.’
‘But spring will come again,’ he said.
‘They know, but winter always saddens them.’
Velvet was looking curiously at the little queen.
‘Ce’Nedra’s background makes her peculiarly sensitive to trees,’ Polgara explained.
‘I didn’t know that Tolnedrans were that interested in the out-of-doors.’
‘She’s only half Tolnedran, Liselle. Her love of trees comes from the other side of her heritage.’
‘I’m a Dryad,’ Ce’Nedra said simply, her eyes still dreamy.
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘We didn’t exactly make an issue of it,’ Belgarath told her. ‘We were having trouble enough getting the Alorns to accept a Tolnedran as the Rivan Queen without complicating matters by telling them that she was a nonhuman as well.’
They made a simple camp not far from the place where they had been set upon by the hideous mud-men Queen Salmissra had dispatched to attack them so many years before. Because they could not hew limbs from live trees in this sacred wood, they were obliged to make shelters as best they could with what they found lying on the leaf-strewn forest floor, and their fire was of necessity very small. As twilight settled slowly over the silent Wood, Silk looked dubiously at the tiny, flickering flame and then out at the vast darkness moving almost visibly out from among the trees. ‘I think we’re in for a cold night,’ he predicted.
Garion slept badly. Although he had piled fallen leaves deeply in the makeshift bed he shared with Ce’Nedra, their damp cold seemed to seep through to chill his very bones. He awoke from a fitful doze just as the first pale, misty light seeped in among the trees. He sat up stiffly and was about to throw off his blanket, but stopped. Eriond was sitting on a fallen log on the other side of their long-dead campfire, and sitting beside him was a tawny-haired Dryad.
‘The trees say that you are a friend,’ the Dryad was saying as she absently toyed with a sharp-tipped arrow.
‘I’m fond of trees,’ Eriond replied.
‘That’s not exactly the way they meant it.’
‘I know.’
Garion carefully pushed his blankets aside and stood up.
The Dryad’s hand moved swiftly toward the bow lying at her side, then she stopped. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’ She looked at him critically. Her eyes were as grey as glass. ‘You’ve gotten older, haven’t you?’
‘It’s been quite a few years,’ he said, trying to remember just exactly where he had seen her before.
A faint hint of a smile touched her lips. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
‘Well, sort of.’
She laughed, then picked up her bow. She set the arrow she was holding to the string and pointed it at him. ‘Does this help your memory at all?’
He blinked. ‘Weren’t you the one who wanted to kill me?’
‘It was only fair, after all. I was the one who caught you, so I should have been the one who got to kill you.’
‘Do you kill every human you catch?’ Eriond asked her.
She lowered her bow. ‘Well, not every one of them. Sometimes I find other uses for them.’
Garion looked at her a bit more closely. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. You still look the same as before.’
‘I know.’ Her eyes grew challenging. ‘And pretty?’ she prompted.
‘Very pretty.’
‘What a nice thing for you to say. Maybe I’m glad that I didn’t kill you after all. Why don’t you and I go someplace, and you can say some more nice things to me?’
‘That’s enough, Xbel,’ Ce’Nedra said tartly from her bed of leaves. ‘He’s mine, so don’t get any ideas.’
‘Hello, Ce’Nedra,’ the tawny-haired Dryad said as calmly as if they had talked together within the past week. ‘Wouldn’t you be willing to share him with one of your own sisters?’
‘You wouldn’t lend me your comb, would you?’
‘Certainly not—but that’s entirely different.’
‘There’s no way that I could ever make you understand,’ Ce’Nedra said, pushing back her blankets and rising to her feet.
‘Humans.’ Xbel sighed. ‘You all have such funny ideas.’ She looked speculatively at Eriond, her slim little hand softly touching his cheek. ‘How about this one? Does it belong to you, too?’
Polgara came out of another one of their makeshift shelters. Her face was calm, although one of her eyebrows was raised. ‘Good morning, Xbel,’ she said. ‘You’re up early.’
‘I was hunting,’ the Dryad replied. ‘Does this blond one belong to you, Polgara? Ce’Nedra won’t share that one of hers with me, but maybe—’ Her hand lingeringly touched Eriond’s soft curls.
‘No, Xbel,’ Polgara said firmly.
Xbel sighed again. ‘None of you are any fun at all,’ she pouted. Then she stood up. She was as tiny as Ce’Nedra and as slender as a willow. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I almost forgot. Xantha says that I’m supposed to take you to her.’
‘But you got sidetracked, didn’t you?’ Ce’Nedra added drily.
‘The day hasn’t even got started yet,’ the Dryad shrugged.
Then Belgarath and Silk came out into the open area around the cold fire pit; a moment later, Durnik and Toth joined them.
‘You have such a lot of them,’ Xbel murmured warmly. ‘Surely you can spare me one for just a little while.’
‘What’s this?’ Silk asked curiously.
‘Never mind, Silk,’ Polgara told him. ‘Xantha wants to see us. Right after breakfast, Xbel here will show us the way—won’t you, Xbel?’
‘I suppose so.’ Xbel sighed a bit petulantly.
After their simple breakfast, the tawny-haired Dryad led them through the ancient Wood. Belgarath, leading his horse, walked beside her, and the two of them seemed deep in a conversation of some kind. Garion noticed that his grandfather furtively reached into his pocket from time to time and offered something to the slim Dryad—something she greedily snatched and popped into her mouth.
‘What’s he giving her?’ Velvet asked.
‘Sweets,’ Polgara said, sounding disgusted. ‘They’re not good for her, but he always brings sweets with him when he comes into this Wood.’
‘Oh,’ Velvet said. ‘I see.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Isn’t she a bit young to be so—well—’
Ce’Nedra laughed. ‘Appearances are deceiving, Liselle. Xbel is quite a bit older than she looks.’
‘How old would you say?’
‘Two or three hundred years at least. She’s the same age as her tree, and oak trees live for a very long time.’
Back in the forest, Garion heard giggles, whispers, and the faint tinkle of little golden bells; once in a while he caught a glimpse of a flitting patch of color as a Dryad scampered through the trees, her earrings jingling.
Queen Xantha’s tree was even more vast than Garion remembered it, its branches as broad as highways and the hollows in its bole opening like the mouths of caves. The Dryads in their brightly colored tunics bedecked the huge limbs like flowers, giggling and whispering and pointing at the visitors. Xbel led them into the broad, moss-covered clearing beneath the tree, put her fingers to her lips, and made a curiously birdlike whistle.
Queen Xantha, with her red-haired daughter Xera at her side, emerged from one of the hollows in the vast trunk and greeted them as they dismounted. Ce’Nedra and Xera flew into each others’ arms even as the queen and Polgara warmly embraced. Xantha’s golden hair was touched with gray at the temples, and her gray-green eyes were tired.
‘Are you unwell, Xantha?’ Polgara asked her.
The queen sighed. ‘The time is growing close, that’s all.’ She looked up affectionately at her enormous oak. ‘He’s growing very tired, and his weight presses down upon his roots. He finds it harder and harder each spring to revive himself and put forth leaves.’
‘Can I do anything?’
‘No, dearest Polgara. There’s no pain—just a great weariness. I won’t mind sleeping. Now, what brings you into our Wood?’
‘Someone has taken my baby,’ Ce’Nedra cried, flying into her aunt’s arms.
‘What are you saying, child?’
‘It happened last summer, Xantha,’ Belgarath told her. ‘We’re trying to find the trail of the one who stole him—a Mallorean named Zandramas. We think that the abductor sailed south aboard a Nyissan ship.’