Demon Lord Of Karanda (21 page)

‘At least they can’t hear us out here,’ Garion said.

‘No, but they can
see
us. If I were you, Belgarion, I still wouldn’t talk too openly—even out of doors. I happened to come across one industrious fellow yesterday who was busily writing down every word of a conversation being conducted in whispers some fifty yards away.’

‘That’s a neat trick,’ Belgarath said. ‘How did he manage it?’

‘He’s stone-deaf,’ she replied. ‘Over the years, he’s learned to understand what people are saying by reading the shape of the words from their lips.’

‘Clever,’ the old man murmured. ‘Is that why you’re so busily sniffing cherry blossoms?’

She nodded with a dimpled smile. ‘That and the fact that they have such a lovely fragrance.’

He scratched at his beard, his hand covering his mouth. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What I need is some sort of disruption—something to draw Brador’s police off so that we can slip out of Mal Zeth without being followed. Zakath is rock hard on the point of not doing anything until his army gets back from Cthol Murgos, so it’s obvious that we’re going to have to move without him. Is there anything afoot that might distract all the spies around here?’

‘Not really, Ancient One. The petty kinglet of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin are scheming against each other, but that’s been going on for years. The old King of Voresebo is trying to get imperial aid in wresting his throne back from his son, who deposed him a year or so ago. Baron Vasca, the Chief of the Bureau of Commerce, is trying to assimilate the Bureau of Military Procurement, but the generals have him stalemated. Those are the major things in the air right now. There are a number of minor plots going on as well, but nothing earthshaking enough to divert the spies who are watching us.’

‘Can you stir anything up?’ Polgara asked, her lips scarcely moving.

‘I can try, Lady Polgara,’ Velvet replied, ‘but Brador is right on top of everything that’s happening here in the palace. I’ll talk with Kheldar and Sadi. It’s remotely possible that the three of us can engineer something unexpected enough to give us a chance to slip out of the city.’

‘It’s getting fairly urgent, Liselle,’ Polgara said. ‘If Zandramas finds what she’s looking for at Ashaba, she’ll be off again, and we’ll wind up trailing along behind her in the same way that we were back in Cthol Murgos.’

‘I’ll see what we can come up with, my Lady,’ Velvet promised.

‘Are you going back inside?’ Belgarath asked her.

She nodded.

‘I’ll go with you.’ He looked around distastefully. ‘All this fresh air and exercise is a little too wholesome for my taste.’

‘Walk a bit farther with me, Garion,’ Polgara said.

‘All right.’

As Velvet and Belgarath turned back toward the east wing of the palace, Garion and his aunt strolled on along the neatly trimmed green lawn lying beneath the blossom-covered trees. A wren, standing on the topmost twig of a gnarled, ancient tree, sang as if his heart would burst.

‘What’s he singing about?’ Garion asked, suddenly remembering his aunt’s unusual affinity for birds.

‘He’s trying to attract the attention of a female,’ she replied, smiling gently. ‘It’s that time of year again. He’s being very eloquent and making all sorts of promises—most of which he’ll break before the summer’s over.’

He smiled and affectionately put his arm about her shoulders.

She sighed happily. ‘This is pleasant,’ she said. ‘For some reason when we’re apart, I still think of you as a little boy. It always sort of surprises me to find that you’ve grown so tall.’

There wasn’t too much that he could say to that. ‘How’s Durnik?’ he asked. ‘I almost never see him these days.’

‘He and Toth and Eriond managed to find a well-stocked trout pond on the southern end of the imperial grounds,’ she replied with a slightly comical upward roll of her eyes. ‘They’re catching large numbers of fish, but the kitchen staff is beginning to get a bit surly about the whole thing.’

‘Trust Durnik to find water.’ Garion laughed. ‘Is Eriond actually fishing too? That seems a little out of character for him.’

‘I don’t think he’s very serious about it. He goes along mostly for Durnik’s company, I think—and because he likes to be outside.’ She paused and then looked directly at him. As so many times in the past, he was suddenly struck to the heart by her luminous beauty. ‘How has Ce’Nedra been lately?’ she asked him.

‘She’s managed to locate a number of young ladies to keep her company,’ he replied. ‘No matter where we go, she’s always able to surround herself with companions.’

‘Ladies like to have other ladies about them, dear,’ she said. ‘Men are nice enough, I suppose, but a woman needs other women to talk to. There are so many important things that men just don’t understand.’ Her face grew serious. ‘There hasn’t been any recurrence of what happened in Cthol Murgos, then?’ she asked.

‘Not so far as I can tell. She seems fairly normal to me. About the only unusual thing I’ve noticed is that she never talks about Geran any more.’

‘That could just be her way of protecting herself, Garion. She might not be able to put it into words exactly, but she’s aware of the melancholia that came over her at Prolgu, and I’m sure that she realizes that if she gives in to it, she’ll be incapacitated. She still thinks about Geran, I’m sure—probably most of the time—but she just won’t talk about him.’ She paused again. ‘What about the physical side of your marriage?’ she asked him directly.

Garion blushed furiously and coughed. ‘Uh—there really hasn’t been much opportunity for that sort of thing, Aunt Pol—and I think she has too many other things on her mind.’

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘It’s not a good idea just to ignore that, Garion,’ she told him. ‘After a while, people grow apart if they don’t periodically renew their intimacy.’

He coughed again, still blushing. ‘She doesn’t really seem very interested, Aunt Pol.’

‘That’s your fault, dear. All it takes is a little bit of planning and attention to detail.’

‘You make it sound awfully calculated and cold-blooded.’

‘Spontaneity is very nice, dear, but there’s a great deal of charm to a well-planned seduction, too.’

‘Aunt Pol!’ he gasped, shocked to the core.

‘You’re an adult, Garion dear,’ she reminded him, ‘and that’s one of an adult man’s responsibilities. Think about it. You can be quite resourceful at times. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.’ She looked out over the sun-washed lawns. ‘Shall we go back inside now?’ she suggested. ‘I think it’s almost lunch time.’

That afternoon, Garion once again found himself strolling about the palace grounds, this time accompanied by Silk and Sadi the eunuch. ‘Belgarath needs a diversion,’ he told them seriously. ‘I think he has a plan to get us out of the city, but we’ve got to shake off all the spies who are watching us for long enough for him to put it into motion.’ He was busily scratching at his nose as he spoke, his hand covering his mouth.

‘Hay fever?’ Silk asked him.

‘No. Velvet told us that some of Brador’s spies are deaf, but that they can tell what you’re saying by watching your lips.’

‘What an extraordinary gift,’ Sadi murmured. ‘I wonder if an undeaf man could learn it.’

‘I can think of some times myself when it might have been useful,’ Silk agreed, covering his mouth as he feigned a cough. He looked at Sadi. ‘Can I get an honest answer out of you?’ he asked.

‘That depends on the question, Kheldar.’

‘You’re aware of the secret language?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you understand it?’

‘I’m afraid not. I’ve never met a Drasnian who trusted me enough to teach me.’

‘I wonder why.’

Sadi flashed him a quick grin.

‘I think we can manage if we cover our mouths when we speak,’ Garion said.

‘Won’t that become a little obvious after a while?’ Sadi objected.

‘What are they going to do? Tell us to stop?’

‘Probably not, but we might want to pass on some disinformation sometimes, and if they know that we know about this way of listening, we won’t be able to do that.’ The eunuch sighed about the lost opportunity, then shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ he said.

Garion looked at Silk. ‘Do you know of anything that’s going on that we could use to pull the police off our trail?’

‘No, not really,’ the little man replied. ‘At the moment the Melcene consortium seems to be concentrating on keeping this year’s price list a secret and trying to persuade Baron Vasca that Yarblek and I should be restrained to those enclaves on the west coast. We’ve got Vasca pretty much in our pockets, though—as long as he stays bribed. There’s a great deal of secret maneuvering going on, but I don’t think anything is close to coming to a head right now. Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t cause a big enough stink to make the secret police abandon their assignment to watch us.’

‘Why not go right to the top?’ Sadi suggested. ‘I could talk to Brador and see if he’s susceptible to bribery.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Garion said. ‘He’s having us watched on specific orders from Zakath. I doubt that any amount of money would make him consider risking his head.’

‘There are other ways to bribe people, Belgarion.’ Sadi smiled slyly. ‘I have some things in my case that make people feel
very
good. The only trouble with them is that after you’ve used them a few times, you have to keep on using them. The pain of stopping is really quite unbearable. I could
own
Brador within the space of a week and make him do anything I told him to do.’

Garion felt a sudden surge of profound distaste for the entire notion. ‘I’d really rather not do that,’ he said, ‘or only as a last resort.’

‘You Alorns have a peculiar notion of morality,’ the eunuch said, rubbing at his shaved scalp. ‘You chop people in two without turning a hair, but you get queasy at the idea of poisons or drugs.’

‘It’s a cultural thing, Sadi,’ Silk told him.

‘Have you found anything else that might work to our advantage?’ Garion asked.

Sadi considered it. ‘Not by itself, no,’ he replied. ‘A bureaucracy lends itself to endemic corruption, though. There are a number of people in Mallorea who take advantage of that. Caravans have a habit of getting waylaid in the Dalasian Mountains or on the road from Maga Renn. A caravan needs a permit from the Bureau of Commerce, and Vasca has been known on occasion to sell information about departure times and routes to certain robber chiefs. Or, if the price is right, he sells his silence to the merchant barons in Melcene.’ The eunuch chuckled. ‘Once he sold information about one single caravan to three separate robber bands. There was a pitched battle on the plains of Delchin, or so I’m told.’

Garion’s eyes narrowed in thought. ‘I’m beginning to get the feeling that we might want to concentrate our attention on this Baron Vasca,’ he said. ‘Velvet told us that he’s
also
trying to take the Bureau of Military Procurement away from the army.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Silk said with some surprise. ‘Little Liselle is developing quite rapidly, isn’t she?’

‘It’s the dimples, Prince Kheldar,’ Sadi said. ‘I’m almost totally immune to any kind of feminine blandishment, but I have to admit that when she smiles at me, my knees turn to butter. She’s absolutely adorable—and totally unscrupulous, of course.’

Silk nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’re moderately proud of her.’

‘Why don’t you two go look her up?’ Garion suggested. ‘Pool your information about this highly corruptible Baron Vasca. Maybe we can stir something up—something noisy. Open fighting in the halls of the palace might just be the sort of thing we need to cover our escape.’

‘You have a genuine flair for politics, Belgarion,’ Sadi said admiringly.

‘I’m a quick learner,’ Garion admitted, ‘and, of course, I keep company with some very disreputable men.’

‘Thank you, your Majesty,’ the eunuch replied with mock appreciation.

Shortly after supper, Garion walked through the halls of the palace for his customary evening conversation with Zakath. As always, a soft-footed secret policeman trailed along some distance behind.

Zakath’s mood that evening was pensive—almost approaching the bleak, icy melancholy that had marked him back in Rak Hagga.

‘Bad day?’ Garion asked him, removing a sleeping kitten from the carpet-covered footstool in front of his chair. Then he leaned back and set his feet on the stool.

Zakath made a sour face. ‘I’ve been whittling away at all the work that piled up while I was in Cthol Murgos,’ he said. ‘The problem is that now that I’m back, the pile just keeps getting higher.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Garion agreed. ‘When I get back to Riva, it’s probably going to take me a year to clear my desk. Are you open to a suggestion?’

‘Suggest away, Garion. Right now, I’ll listen to anything.’ He looked reprovingly at the black and white kitten who was biting his knuckles again. ‘Not so hard,’ he murmured, tapping the ferocious little beast on the nose with his forefinger.

The kitten laid back its ears and growled a squeaky little growl at him.

‘I’m not trying to be offensive or anything,’ Garion began cautiously, ‘but I think you’re making the same mistake that Urgit made.’

‘That’s an interesting observation. Go on.’

‘It seems to me that you need to reorganize your government.’

Zakath blinked. ‘Now, that
is
a major proposal,’ he said. ‘I don’t get the connection, though. Urgit was a hopeless incompetent—at least he was before you came along and taught him the fundamentals of ruling. What is this mistake that he and I have in common?’

‘Urgit’s a coward,’ Garion said, ‘and probably always will be. You’re not a coward—sometimes a bit crazy, maybe, but never a coward. The problem is that you’re both making the same mistake. You’re trying to make all the decisions yourselves—even the little ones. Even if you stop sleeping altogether, you won’t find enough hours in the day to do that.’