David Eddings: Castle of Wizardry

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 arrived, 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.