David Eddings - Enchanter's End Game

But there was one person who was not intimidated by Merel’s cool gaze. Grodeg, the towering, white-bearded High Priest of Belar, inevitably requested private audience with the queen, and once Merel left the council room, Islena was lost.

Despite Anheg’s call for a general mobilization, the members of the Bear-cult had not yet left to join the campaign. Their promises to join the fleet later all sounded sincere, but their excuses and delays grew more and more obvious as time went on. Islena knew that Grodeg was behind it all. Nearly every able-bodied man in the kingdom was off with the fleet, which was even now rowing up the broad expanse of the Aldur River to join Anheg in central Algaria. The household guard in the palace at Val Alorn had been reduced to grizzled old men and downy-cheeked boys. Only the Bear-cult remained, and Grodeg pushed his advantage to the limit.

He was polite enough, bowing to the queen when the occasion demanded, and never mentioning her past links with the cult, but his offers to help became more and more insistent; and when Islena faltered at his suggestions concerning this matter or that, he smoothly acted to implement them as if her hesitancy had been acceptance. Little by little, Islena was losing control, and Grodeg, with the armed might of the cult behind him, was taking charge. More and more the cult members infested the palace, giving orders, lounging about the throne room and openly grinning as they watched Islena’s attempts to rule.

“You’re going to have to do something, Islena,” Merel said firmly one evening when the two were alone in the queen’s private apartment. She was striding about the carpeted room, her hair gleaming like soft gold in the candlelight, but there was nothing soft in her expression.

“What can I do?” Islena pleaded, wringing her hands. “He’s never openly disrespectful, and his decisions always seem to be in the best interests of Cherek.”

“You need help, Islena,” Merel told her.

“Whom can I turn to?” The Queen of Cherek was almost in tears. The Lady Merel smoothed the front of her green velvet gown.

“I think it’s time that you wrote to Porenn,” she declared.

“What do I say?” Islena begged of her.

Merel pointed at the small table in the corner where parchment and ink lay waiting. “Sit down,” she instructed, “and write what I tell you to write.”

Count Brador, the Tolnedran ambassador, was definitely growing tiresome, Queen Layla decided. The plump little queen marched purposefully toward the chamber where she customarily gave audiences and where the ambassador awaited her with his satchel full of documents.

The courtiers in the halls bowed as she passed, her crown slightly askew and her heels clicking on the polished oak floors, but Queen Layla uncharacteristically ignored them. This was not the time for polite exchanges or idle chitchat. The Tolnedran had to be dealt with, and she had delayed too long already.

The ambassador was an olive-skinned man with receding hair and a hooked nose. He wore a brown mantle with the old trim that indicated his relationship to the Borunes. He lounged rather indolently in a large cushioned chair near the window of the sunny room where he and Queen Layla were to meet. He rose as she entered and bowed with exquisite grace. “Your Highness,” he murmured politely.

“My dear Count Brador,” Queen Layla gushed at him, putting on her most helpless and scatterbrained expression, “please do sit down. I’m sure we know each other well enough by now to skip all these tedious formalities.” She sank into a chair, fanning herself with one hand. “It’s turned warm, hasn’t it?”

“Summers are lovely here in Sendaria, your Highness,” the count replied, settling back in his chair. “I wonder—have you had the chance to think over the proposals I gave you at our last meeting?”

Queen Layla stared at him blankly. “Which proposals were those, Count Brador?” She gave a helpless little giggle. “Please forgive me, but my mind seems to be absolutely gone these days. There are so many details. I wonder how my husband keeps them all straight.”

“We were discussing the administration of the port at Camaar, your Highness,” the count reminded her gently.

“We were?” The queen gave him a blank look of total incomprehension, secretly delighted at the flicker of annoyance that crossed his face. It was her best ploy. By pretending to have forgotten all previous conversations, she forced him to begin at the beginning every time they met. The count’s strategy, she knew, depended upon a gradual build-up to his final proposal, and her pretended forgetfulness neatly defeated that. “Whatever led us into such a tedious subject as that?” she added.

“Surely your Highness recalls,” the count protested with just the slightest hint of annoyance. “The Tolnedran merchant vessel, Star of Tol Horb, was kept standing at anchor for a week and a half in the harbor before moorage could be found for her. Every day’s delay in unloading her was costing a fortune.”

“Things are so hectic these days,” the queen of Sendaria sighed. “It’s the manpower shortage, you understand. Everybody who hasn’t gone off to war is busy freighting supplies to the army. I’ll send a very stern note to the port authorities about it, though. Was there anything else, Count Brador?”

Brador coughed uncomfortably. “Uh—your Highness has already forwarded just such a note,” he reminded her.

“I have?” Queen Layla feigned astonishment. “Wonderful. That takes care of everything then, doesn’t it? And you’ve dropped by to thank me.” She smiled girlishly. “How exquisitely courteous of you.” She leaned forward to put one hand impulsively on his wrist, quite deliberately knocking the rolled parchment he was holding out of his hand. “How clumsy of me,” she exclaimed, bending quickly to pick up the parchment before he could retrieve it. Then she sat back in her chair, tapping the rolled document absently against her cheek as if lost in thought.

“Uh—actually, your Highness, our discussions had moved somewhat beyond your note to the port authorities,” Brador told her, nervously eyeing the parchment she had so deftly taken from him. “You may recall that I offered Tolnedran assistance in administering the port. I believe we agreed that such assistance might help to alleviate the manpower shortage your Highness just mentioned.”

“What an absolutely marvelous idea,” Layla exclaimed. She brought her plump little fist down on the arm of her chair as if in an outburst of enthusiasm. At that prearranged signal, two of her younger children burst into the room, arguing loudly.

“Mother!” Princess Gelda wailed in outrage, “Fernie stole my red ribbon!”

“I did not!” Princess Ferna denied the charge indignantly. “She gave it to me for my blue beads.”

“Did not!” Gelda snapped.

“Did so!” Ferna replied.

“Children, children,” Layla chided them. “Can’t you see that Mother’s busy? What will the dear count think of us?”

“But she stole it, Mother!” Gelda protested. “She stole my red ribbon.”

“Did not!” Ferna said, spitefully sticking her tongue out at her sister.

Trailing behind them with a look of wide-eyed interest came little Prince Meldig, Queen Layla’s youngest child. In one hand the prince held a jam pot, and his face was liberally smeared with the contents.

“Oh, that’s just impossible,” Layla exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “You girls are supposed to be watching him.” She bustled over to the jam-decorated prince, crumpled the parchment she was holding and began wiping his face with it. Abruptly she stopped. “Oh dear,” she said as if suddenly realizing what she was doing. “Was this important, Count Brador?” she asked the Tolnedran, holding out the rumpled, sticky document.