David Eddings: Castle of Wizardry

“Do you mean am I still in full possession of my faculties?” He sounded amused. “Garion told me that you were worried about that.”

“I told him not to say anything.”

“By the time he got around to it, the whole question was pretty much academic.”

“Are you-? I mean can you still?”

“Everything seems to work the same as always, Pol,” he assured her.

“Give my love to Garion.”

“Of course. Don’t make a habit of this, but keep in touch with me.”

“Very well, father.”

The amulet under Ce’Nedra’s fingers quivered again. Then Polgara’s voice spoke quite firmly. “All right, Ce’Nedra,” the sorceress said, “you can stop eavesdropping now.”

Guiltily, Ce’Nedra jerked her fingers from the amulet.

The next morning, even before the sun came up, she sent for Barak and Durnik.

“I’m going to need every scrap of Angarak gold in the entire army,” she announced to them. “Every single coin. Buy it from the men if you have to, but get me all the red gold you can lay your hands on.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell us why,” Barak said sourly. The big man was surly about being pulled from his bed before daylight.

“I’m a Tolnedran,” she informed him, “and I know my countrymen. I think I’m going to need some bait.”

Ran Borune XXIII, Emperor of Tolnedra, was livid with rage. Ce’Nedra noticed with a certain pang that her father had aged considerably in the year that she had been absent and she wished that their meeting might be more cordial than this one promised to be.

The Emperor had drawn up his legions on the plains of northern Tolnedra, and they faced Ce’Nedra’s army as it emerged from the forest of Vordue. The sun was warm, and the crimson standards of the legions, rising from what seemed a vast sea of brightly burnished steel, waved imposingly in the summer breeze. The massed legions had taken up positions along the crest of a line of low hills and they looked down at Ce’Nedra’s sprawling army with the tactical advantage of terrain in their favor.

King Rhodar quietly pointed this out to the young queen as they dismounted to meet the Emperor. “We definitely don’t want to provoke anything here,” he advised her. “Try your best to be polite at least.”

“I know what I’m doing, your Majesty,” she replied airily, removing her helmet and carefully smoothing her hair.

“Ce’Nedra,” Rhodar said bluntly, taking her arm in a firm grasp, “you’ve been playing this on your veins since the first day we landed on the hook of Arendia. You don’t know from one minute to the next what you’re going to do. I most definitely do not propose to attack the Tolnedran legions uphill, so be civil to your father or I’ll take you over my knee and spank you. Do you understand me?”

“Rhodar!” Ce’Nedra gasped. “What a terrible thing to say!”

“I mean every word,” he told her. “You mind your manners, young lady.”

“Of course I will,” she promised. She gave him a shy, little-girl look through fluttering eyelashes. “Do you still love me, Rhodar?” she asked in a tiny voice.

He gave her a helpless look, and then she patted his broad cheek. “Everything will be just fine, then,” she assured him. “Here comes my father.”

“Ce’Nedra,” Ran Borune demanded angrily, striding to meet them, “just exactly what do you think you’re doing?” The Emperor was dressed in gold-embossed armor, and Ce’Nedra thought he looked rather silly in it.

“Just passing through, father,” she replied as inoffensively as possible. “You’ve been well, I trust?”

“I was until you violated my borders. Where did you get the army?”

“Here and there, father.” She shrugged. “We really ought to talk, you know—someplace private.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” the bald-headed little man declared. “I refuse to talk to you until you get this army off Tolnedran soil.”

“Oh, father,” she reprimanded him, “stop being so childish.”

“Childish?” The Emperor exploded. “Childish!”

“Her Majesty perhaps chose the wrong word,” King Rhodar interposed, giving Ce’Nedra a hard look. “As we all know, she tends at times to be a trifle undiplomatic.”

“What are you doing here, Rhodar?” Ran Borune demanded. He looked around quickly at the other kings. “Why have the Alorns invaded Tolnedra?”

“We haven’t invaded you, Ran Borune,” Anheg told him. “If we had, the smoke from burning towns and villages would be rising behind us. You know how we make war.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

King Cho-Hag answered in a calm voice. “As her Majesty advised you, we’re only passing through on our way to the East.”

“And exactly what do you plan to do in the East?”

“That’s our business,” Anheg told him bluntly.

“Try to be civil,” Lady Polgara said to the Cherek king. She turned to the Emperor. “My father and I explained to you what was happening last summer, Ran Borune. Weren’t you listening?”

“That was before you stole my daughter,” he retorted. “What have you done to her? She was difficult before, but now she’s absolutely impossible.”

“Children grow up, your Majesty,” Polgara replied philosophically. “The queen’s point was well-taken, however. We do need to talk—preferably in private.”

“What queen are we talking about?” the Emperor asked bitingly. “I don’t see any queen here.”

Ce’Nedra’s eyes hardened. “Father,” she snapped, “you know what’s been happening. Now stop playing games and talk sense. This is very important.”

“Your Highness knows me well enough to know that I don’t play games,” he told her in an icy tone.

“Your Majesty,” she corrected him.

“Your Highness,” he insisted.

“Your Majesty,” she repeated, her voice going up an octave.

“Your Highness,” he snarled from between clenched teeth.

“Do we really need to squabble like bad-tempered children right in front of the armies?” Polgara asked calmly.

“She’s right, you know,” Rhodar said to Ran Borune. “We’re all beginning to look a bit foolish out here. We ought to try to maintain the fiction of dignity at least.”

The Emperor glanced involuntarily over one shoulder at the glittering ranks of his legions drawn up on the hilltops not far away. “Very well,” he conceded grudgingly, “but I want it clearly understood that the only thing we’re going to talk about is your withdrawal from Tolnedran soil. If you’ll follow me, we’ll go to my pavilion.”

“Which stands right in the middle of your legions,” King Anheg added. “Forgive me, Ran Borune, but we’re not that stupid. Why don’t we go to my pavilion instead?”

“I’m no stupider than you are, Anheg,” the Emperor retorted.

“If I may,” King Fulrach said mildly. “In the interests of expediency, might we not assume that this spot is more or less neutral?” He turned to Brendig. “Colonel, would you be so good as to have a large tent erected here?”

“At once, your Majesty,” the sober-faced Brendig replied.

King Rhodar grinned. “As you can see, the legendary practicality of the Sendars is not a myth.”

The Emperor looked a bit sour, but finally seemed to remember his manners. “I haven’t seen you in a long time, Fulrach,” he said. “I hope Layla’s well.”

“She sends her regards,” the King of Sendaria replied politely.

“You’ve got good sense, Fulrach,” the Emperor burst out. “Why have you lent yourself to this insane adventure?”

“I think that might be one of the things we ought to discuss in private, don’t you?” Polgara suggested smoothly.