The season made the Sea of the Winds extremely hazardous, and Garion was forced to wait for a full month before he could dispatch a messenger to the Vale of Aldur. By then the late autumn snowstorms had clogged the passes in the mountains of eastern Sendaria, and the royal messenger was obliged literally to wade his way across the plains of Algaria.
With all these delays, it was very nearly Erastide by the time Aunt Pol, Durnik, and Errand arrived at the snowy quay in the harbor at Riva. Durnik admitted to Garion that it had only been a chance meeting with the wayward Captain Greldik, who feared no storm that any sea could hurl at him, that had made the trip possible at all. Polgara spoke briefly with the vagabond seaman before they began the long climb up to the Citadel, and Garion noted with some surprise that Greldik slipped his hawsers immediately and sailed back out to sea.
Polgara seemed quite unconcerned about the gravity of the problem that had impelled Garion to send for her. She spoke with him only a couple of times about it, asking a few rather direct questions that set his ears to flaming. Her discussions with Ce'Nedra were a bit more lengthy, but only slightly so.
Garion received the distinct impression that she was waiting for someone or something before proceeding.
The Erastide celebration at Riva that year was somewhat subdued. Although it was very pleasant to have Polgara, Durnik, and Errand with them to join in the festivities, Garion's concern over the problem Brand had raised dampened his enjoyment of the holiday.
Several weeks afterward, Garion entered the royal apartment one snowy midafternoon to find Polgara and Ce'Nedra seated by a cozy fire sipping tea and chatting together quietly. The curiosity which had been growing in him since the arrival of his visitors finally boiled to a head.
"Aunt Pol," he began.
"Yes dear?"
"You've been here for almost a month now."
"Has it been that long? The time certainly passes quickly when you're with people you love."
"There's still this little problem, you know," he reminded her.
"Yes, Garion," she replied patiently. "I'm aware of that."
"Are we doing anything about it?"
"No," she said placidly, "not yet, anyhow."
"It's sort of important, Aunt Pol. I don't want to seem to be trying to rush you or anything, but- " He broke off helplessly.
Polgara rose from her chair, went to the window, and looked out at the small private garden just outside. The garden was clogged with snow, and the pair of intertwined oak trees Ce'Nedra had planted there at the time of her betrothal to Garion were bowed slightly beneath the weight on their limbs. "One of the things you'll learn as you grow older, Garion," she said to him, gravely looking out at the snowy garden, "is patience. Everything has its proper season. The solution to your problem isn't all that complicated, but it's just not the proper time to come to grips with it yet."
"I don't understand at all, Aunt Pol."
"Then you'll just have to trust me, won't you?"
"Of course I trust you, Aunt Pol. It's just- "
"Just what, dear?"
"Nothing."
It was late winter before Captain Greldik returned from the south. A storm had sprung one of the seams of his ship, and she was taking water as she wallowed heavily around the headland and made for the quay.
"I thought for a while there that I might have to swim," the bearded Cherek growled as he limped across to the quay. "Where's the best place to beach this poor old cow of mine? I'm going to have to chalk her bottom."
"Most sailors use that inlet there," Garion replied, pointing.
"Ihate to beach a ship in the winter," Greldik said bitterly. "Is there someplace where I can get a drink?"
"Up at the Citadel," Garion offered.
"Thanks. Oh, I brought that visitor Polgara wanted."
"Visitor?"
Greldik stepped back, squinted at his ship to determine the location of the aft cabin, then went over and kicked the planking several times. "We're here!" he bellowed. He turned back to Garion. "I really hate to sail with women on board. I'm not superstitious, but sometimes I really think theydo bring bad luck -and you've always got to watch your manners."
"You have a woman aboard?" Garion asked curiously.
Greldik grunted sourly. "Pretty little thing, but she seems to expect deferential treatment; and when your whole crew is busy bailing seawater out of your bilges, you don't have much time for that."
"Hello, Garion," a light voice said from up on deck.
"Xera?" Garion stared up into the small face of his wife's cousin. "Is that really you?"
"Yes, Garion," the red-haired Dryad replied calmly. She was bundled up to the ears in thick, warm furs, and her breath steamed in the frosty air. "I got here as quickly as I could when I received Lady Polgara's summons." She smiled sweetly down at the sour-faced Greldik. "Captain," she said, "could you have some of your men bring those bales along for me?"
"Dirt," Greldik snorted. "I sail two thousand leagues in the dead of winter to carry one small girl, two casks of water, and four bales of dirt."
"Loam, Captain," Xera corrected meticulously, "loam. There' s a difference, you know."
"I'm a sailor"' Greldik said. "To me, dirt is dirt."
"Whatever you wish, Captain," Xera said winsomely. "Now do be a dear and have the bales carried up to the Citadel for me -and I'll need the casks as well."
Grumbling, Captain Greldik gave the orders.
Ce'Nedra was ecstatic when she learned that her cousin had arrived in Riva. The two of them flew into each other's arms and dashed off immediately to find Polgara.
"They're very fond of each other, aren't they?" Durnik observed. The smith was dressed in furs and wore a pair of well-tarred boots. Shortly after his arrival, despite the fact that it was in the dead of winter, Durnik had discovered a large, swirling pool in the river that dropped out of the mountains and ran just to the north of the city. With astounding self-restraint, he had actually stared at that ice-rimmed pool for a full ten minutes before going in search of a fishing pole. Now he happily spent most of each day probing those dark, churning waters with a waxed line and a bright lure in search of the silvery-sided salmon that lurked beneath the turbulent surface. The closest Garion had ever seen his Aunt Pol actually come to scolding her husband had been on the day when she had intercepted him on his way out of the Citadel into the very teeth of a screaming blizzard, whistling, and with his fishing pole over his shoulder.
"What am I supposed to do with all of this?" Greldik demanded, pointing at the six burly sailors who had carried Xera's bales and casks up the long stairway to the grim fortress brooding over the city.
"Oh," Garion said, "just have your men put them over there." He pointed toward a corner of the antechamber they had just entered. "I'll find out what the ladies want done with them later."
Greldik grunted. "Good." Then he rubbed his hands together. "Now, about that drink- "
Garion did not have the faintest idea what his wife and her cousin and Polgara were up to. Most of the time, their conversations broke off as soon as he entered the room. To his astonishment, the four bales of loam and the two casks of what seemed to be water were stacked rather untidily in one corner of the royal bedroom. Ce'Nedra adamantly refused to explain, but the look she gave him when he asked why they needed to be so close to the royal bed was not only mysterious, but actually faintly naughty.
It was perhaps a week or two after Xera's arrival that a sudden break in the weather brought the sun out, and the temperature soared up to almost freezing. Shortly before noon, Garion was in conference with the Drasnian ambassador when a wide-eyed servant hesitantly entered the royal study. "Please, your Majesty," the poor man stammered. "Please forgive me for interrupting, but Lady Polgara told me to bring you to her at once. I tried to tell her that we don't bother you when you're busy, but she -well, she sort of insisted."
"You'd better go see what she wants, your Majesty," the Drasnian ambassador suggested. "If the Lady Polgara had just summonedme, I'd be running toward her door already."
"You don't really have to be afraid of her, Margrave," Garion told him. "She wouldn't actually hurt you."
"That's a chance I'd prefer not to take, your Majesty. We can talk about the matter we were discussing some other time."
Frowning slightly, Garion went down the hall to the door of Aunt Pol's apartment. He tapped gently and then went in.
"Ah, there you are," she said crisply. "I was about to send another servant after you." She wore a fur-lined cloak with a deep hood pulled up until it framed her face. Ce'Nedra and Xera, similarly garbed, were standing just behind her.
"I want you to go find Durnik," she said. "He's probably fishing. Find him and bring him back to the Citadel. Get a shovel and a pick from someplace and then bring Durnik and the tools to that little garden just outside your apartment window."
He stared at her.
She made a kind of flipping motion with one hand.
"Quickly, quickly, Garion," she said. "The day is wearing on."
"Yes, Aunt Pol," he said without even thinking. He turned and went back out, half-running. He was nearly to the end of the hallway before he remembered that he was the king here, and that peopleprobably shouldn't order him around like that.
Durnik, of course, responded immediately to his wife's summons -well,almost immediately. Hedid make one last cast before carefully coiling up his fishing line and following Garion back to the Citadel. When the two of them entered the small private garden adjoining the royal apartment, Aunt Pol, Ce'Nedra, and Xera were already there, standing beneath the intertwined oak trees.
"Here's what we're going to do," Aunt Pol said in a businesslike fashion. "I'd like to have the area around these tree trunks opened up to a depth of about two feet."
"Uh -Aunt Pol," Garion interposed, "the ground is sort of frozen. Digging is going to be a little difficult."
"That's what the pick is for, dear," she said patiently.
"Wouldn't it be easier to wait until the ground thaws?"
"Probably, but it needs to be done now. Dig, Garion."
"I've got gardeners, Aunt Pol. We could send for a couple of them." He eyed the pick and shovel uncomfortably.
"It's probably better if we keep it in the family, dear. You can start digging right here." She pointed.
Garion sighed and took up the pick.
What followed made no sense at all. Garion and Durnik picked and spaded at the frozen ground until late afternoon, opening up the area Aunt Pol had indicated. Then they dumped the four bales of loam into the hole they had prepared, tamped down the loose earth, and watered the dark soil liberally with the water from the two casks. After that, Aunt Pol instructed them to cover everything back up again with snow.
"Did you understand any of that?" Garion asked Durnik as the two of them returned their tools to the gardener's shed in the courtyard near the stables.
"No," Durnik admitted, "but I'm sure she knows what she's doing." He glanced at the evening sky and then sighed. "It's probably a little late to go back to that pool," he said regretfully.
Aunt Pol and the two girls visited the garden daily, but Garion could never discover exactly what they were doing, and the following week his attention was diverted by the sudden appearance of his grandfather, Belgarath the Sorcerer. The young king was sitting in his study with Errand as the boy described in some detail the training of the horse Garion had given him a few years back when the door banged unceremoniously open and Belgarath, travel-stained and with a face like a thundercloud, strode in.
"Grandfather!" Garion exclaimed, starting to his feet. "What are- "
"Shut up and sit down!" Belgarath shouted at him.
"What?"
"Do as I tell you. We are going to have a talk, Garion -that is,I'm going to talk, andyou're going to listen." He paused as if to get control of what appeared to be a towering anger. "Do you have any idea of what you've done?" he demanded at last.
"Me? What are we talking about, Grandfather?" Garion asked.
"We're talking about your little display of pyrotechnics on the plains of Mimbre," Belgarath replied icily. "That impromptu thunderstorm of yours."
"Grandfather." Garion explained as mildly as possible, "they were right on the brink of war. All Arendia would probably have gotten involved. You've said yourself that we didn't want that to happen. I had to stop them."
"We aren't talking about your motives, Garion. We're talking about your methods. What possessed you to use a thunderstorm?"
"It seemed like the best way to get their attention."
"You couldn't think of anything else?"
"They were already charging, Grandfather. I didn't have a lot of time to consider alternatives."
"Haven't I told you again and again that we don't tamper with the weather?"
"Well -it was sort of an emergency."
"If you thoughtthat was an emergency, you should have seen the blizzard you touched off in the Vale with your foolishness -and the hurricanes it spawned in the Sea of the East- not to mention the droughts and tornadoes you kicked up all over the world. Don't you have any sense of responsibility at all?"
"I didn't know it was going to do that." Garion was aghast.
"Boy, it's your business to know!" Belgarath suddenly roared at him, his face mottled with rage. "It's taken Beldin and me six months of constant travel and the Gods only know how much effort to quiet things down. Do you realize that with that one thoughtless storm of yours you came very close to changing the weather patterns of the entire globe? And that change would have been a universal disaster!"
"One tiny little storm?"
"Yes, one tiny little storm," Belgarath said scathingly. "Your one tiny little storm in the right place at the right time came very close to altering the weather for the next several eons -all over the world- you blockhead!"
"Grandfather," Garion protested.
"Do you know what the term ice age means?"
Garion shook his head, his face blank.
"It's a time when the average temperature drops -just a bit. In the extreme north, that means that the snow doesn't melt in the summer. It keeps piling up, year after year. It forms glaciers, and the glaciers start to move farther and farther south. In just a few centuries, that little display of yours could have had a wall of ice two hundred feet high moving down across the moors of Drasnia. You'd have buried Boktor and Val Alorn under solid ice, you idiot. Is that what you wanted?"
"Of course not. Grandfather, I honestly didn't know. I wouldn't have started it if I'd known."
"That would have been a great comfort to the millions of people you very nearly entombed in ice," Belgarath retorted with a vast sarcasm. "Don'tever do that again! Don't eventhink about putting your hands on something until you're absolutely certain you know everything there is to know about it. Even then, it's best not to gamble."
"But -but- you and Aunt Pol called down the rainstorm in the Wood of the Dryads," Garion pointed out defensively.
"We knew what we were doing," Belgarath almost screamed. "There was no danger there." With an enormous effort, the old man got control of himself. "Don'tever touch the weather again, Garion -not until you've had at least a thousand years of study."
"A thousand years!"
"At least. In your case, maybe two thousand. You seem to have this extraordinary luck. You always manage to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"I won't do it again, Grandfather," Garion promised fervently, shuddering at the thought of towering ice walls creeping inexorably across the world.
Belgarath gave him a long, hard look and then let the matter drop. Later, when he had regained his composure, he lounged in a chair by the fire with a tankard of ale in one hand. Garion knew his Grandfather well enough to be aware of the fact that ale mellowed the old man's disposition and he had prudently sent for some as soon as the initial explosion had subsided. "How are your studies going, boy?" the old sorcerer asked.
"I've been a little pressed for time lately, Grandfather," Garion replied guiltily.
Belgarath gave him a long, cold stare, and Garion could clearly see the mottling on his neck that indicated that the old man's interior temperature was rising again.
"I'm sorry Grandfather," he apologized quickly. "From now on, I'llmake the time to study."
Belgarath's eyes widened slightly. "Don't do that," he said quickly. "You got into enough trouble fooling around with the weather. If you start in on time, not even the Gods could predict the outcome."
"I didn't exactly mean it that way, Grandfather."
"Say what you mean, then. This isn't a good area for misunderstandings, you know." He turned his attention then to Errand. "What are you doing here, boy?" he asked.
"Durnik and Polgara are here," Errand replied. "They thought I ought to come along."
"Polgara's here?" Belgarath seemed surprised.
"I asked her to come," Garion told him. "There's a little bit of a problem she's fixing for me -at least Ithink she's fixing it. She's been acting sort of mysterious."
"She overdramatizes things sometimes. Exactly what is this problem she's working on?"
" Uh- " Garion glanced at Errand, who sat watching the two of them with polite interest. Garion flushed slightly.
"It -uh- has to do with the -uh- heir to the Rivan Throne," he explained delicately.
"What's the problem there?" Belgarath demanded obtusely "You'rethe heir to the Rivan Throne."
"No, I mean the next one."
"I still don't see any problem."
"Grandfather, thereisn't one -not yet, at least."
"Thereisn't? What have you been doing, boy?"
"Never mind," Garion said, giving up.
When spring arrived at last, Polgara's attention to the two embracing oak-trees became all-consuming. She went to the garden at least a dozen times a day to examine every twig meticulously for signs of budding. When at last the twig ends began to swell, a look of strange satisfaction became apparent on her face. Once again she and the two young women, Ce'Nedra and Xera, began puttering in the garden.
Garion found all these botanical pastimes baffling -even a little irritating. He had, after all, asked Aunt Pol to come to Riva to deal with a much more serious problem.
Xera returned home to the Wood of the Dryads at the first break in the weather. Not long afterward, Aunt Pol calmly announced that she and Durnik and Errand would also be leaving soon. "We'll take father with us," she declared, looking disapprovingly over at the old sorcerer, who was drinking ale and bantering outrageously with Brand's niece, the blushing Lady Arell.
"Aunt Pol," Garion protested, "what about that little -uh- difficulty Ce'Nedra and I were having?"
"What about it, dear?"
"Aren't you going to do something about it?"
"I did, Garion," she replied blandly.
"Aunt Pol, you spent all your time in that garden."
"Yes, dear. I know."
Garion brooded about the whole matter for several weeks after they had all left. He even began to wonder if he had somehow failed to explain fully the problem or if Aunt Pol had somehow misunderstood.
When spring was in full flower and the meadows rising steeply behind the city had turned bright green, touched here and there with vibrantly colored patches of wildflowers, Ce'Nedra began behaving peculiarly. He frequently found her seated in their garden, looking with an odd, tender expression at her oak trees, and quite often she was gone from the Citadel entirely, to return at the end of the day in the company of Lady Arell all bedecked with wildflowers.
Before each meal, she took a sip from a small, silver flagon and made a dreadful face.
"What's that you're drinking?" he asked her curiously one morning.
"It's a sort of a tonic," she replied, shuddering. "It has oak buds in it and it tastes absolutely vile."
"Aunt Pol made it for you."
"How did you know that?"
"Her medicines always taste awful."
"Mmm," she said absently. Then she gave him a long look. "Are you going to be very busy today?"
"Not really. Why?"
"I thought that we might stop by the kitchen, pick up some meat, bread, and cheese, and then go spend a day out in the forest."
"In the forest? What for?"
"Garion," she said almost crossly, "I've been cooped up in this dreary old castle all winter. I'd like some fresh air and sunshine -and the smell of trees and wildflowers around me instead of damp stone."
"Why don't you ask Arell to go with you? I probably shouldn't really be gone all day."
She gave him an exasperated look. "You just said you didn't have anything important to do."
"You never know. Something might come up."
"It can wait," she said from between clenched teeth.
Garion shot her a quick glance, recognized the danger signals, and then replied as mildly as he could, "I suppose you're right, dear. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have a little outing together. We could ask Arell -and maybe Kail- if they'd like to join us."
"No. Garion," she said quite firmly.
"No?"
"Definitely not."
And so it was that, shortly after breakfast, the Rivan King, hand in hand with his little queen, left the Citadel with a well-stocked basket, crossed the broad meadow behind the city, and strolled into the sunlight-dappled shade beneath the evergreens that mounted steeply toward the glistening, snow-capped peaks that formed the spine of the island.
Once they entered the woods, all traces of discontent dropped away from Ce'Nedra's face. She picked wildflowers as they wandered among the tall pines and firs and wove them into a garland for herself. The morning sun slanted down through the limbs high overhead, dappling the mossy forest floor with golden light and blue shadows. The resinous smell of the tall evergreens was a heady perfume, and birds swooped and spiraled among the tall, columnlike trunks, caroling to greet the sun.
After a time, they found a glade, a mossy, open clearing embraced by trees, where a brook gurgled and murmured over shining stones to drop into a gleaming forest pool and where a single, soft-eyed deer stood to drink. The deer raised her head from the water swirling about her delicate brown legs, looked at them quite unafraid, and then picked her way back into the forest, her hooves clicking on the stones and her tail flicking.
"Oh, this is just perfect," Ce'Nedra declared with a soft little smile on her face. She sat on a round boulder and began to unlace her shoes.
Garion put down the basket and stretched, feeling the cares of the past several weeks slowly draining out of him.
"I'm glad you thought of this," he said, sprawling comfortably on the sun-warmed moss. "It's really a very good idea."
"Naturally"' she said. "All my ideas are good ones."
"I don't know if I'd gothat far." Then a thought occurred to him. "Ce'Nedra," he said.
"'What?"
"I've been meaning to ask you something. All the Dryads have names that begin with an X, don't they? Xera, Xantha -like that."
"It's our custom," she replied, continuing to work on her shoelaces.
"Why doesn't yours, then? Begin with an X, I mean?"
"It does." She pulled off one of her shoes. "Tolnedrans just pronounce it a little differently, that's all. So they spell it that way. Dryads don't read or write very much, so they don't worry too much about spelling."
"X'Nedra?"
"That's fairly close. Make the X a little softer, though."
"You know, I've been wondering about that for the longest time."
"Why didn't you ask, then?"
"I don't know. I just never got around to it."
"There's a reason for everything, Garion," she told him, "but you'll never find it out if you don't ask."
"Now you sound just like Aunt Pol."
"Yes, dear. I know." She smiled, pulled off her other shoe and wriggled her toes contentedly.
"Why barefoot?" he asked idly.
"I like the feel of the moss on my feet -and I think that in a little bit I might go swimming."
"It's too cold. That brook comes right out of a glacier."
"A little cold water won't hurt me." She shrugged. Then, almost as if responding to a dare, she stood up and began to take off her clothes.
"Ce'Nedra! What if someone comes along?"
She laughed a silvery laugh. "What if they do? I'm not going to soak my clothes just for the sake of propriety. Don't be such a prude, Garion."
"It's not that. It's- "
"It's what?"
"Never mind."
She ran on light feet into the pool, squealing delightedly as the icy water splashed up around her. With a long clean dive, she disappeared beneath the surface of the pool, swam to the far side, where a large, mossy log angled down into the crystal-clear water, and surfaced with streaming hair and an impish grin. "Well?" she said to him.
"Well what?"
"Aren't you coming in?"
"Of course I'm not."
"Is the mighty Overlord of the West afraid of cold water?"
"The mighty Overlord of the West has better sense than to catch cold for the sake of a little splashing around."
"Garion, you're getting positively stodgy. Take off your crown and relax."
"I'm not wearing my crown."
"Take off something else, then."
"Ce'Nedra!"
She laughed another silvery peal of laughter and began kicking her bare feet, sending up showers of sparkling water drops that gleamed like jewels in the midmorning sunlight. Then she lay back and her hair spread like a deep copper fan upon the surface of the pool. The garland of flowers she had woven for herself earlier had come apart as a result of her swimming, and the individual blossoms floated on the water, bobbing in the ripples.
Garion sat on a mossy hummock with his back resting comfortably against a tree trunk. The sun was warm, and the smell of trees and grass and wildflowers filled his nostrils. A breeze carrying the salt tang of the sea sighed among the green limbs of the tall fir trees surrounding the little glade, and golden sunlight fell in patches on the floor of the forest.
An errant butterfly, its patterned wings a blaze of iridescent blue and gold, flitted out from among the tall tree trunks into the sunlight. Drawn by color or scent or some other, more mysterious urge, it wavered through the lucid air to the pool and the flowers bobbing there. Curiously it moved from flower to floating flower, touching each of them lightly with its wings. With a breathless expression Ce'Nedra slowly sank her head into the water until only her upturned face was above the surface. The butterfly continued its curious investigation, coming closer and closer to the waiting queen. And then it hovered over her face, its soft wings brushing her lips ecstatically.
"Oh, fine." Garion laughed. "Now my wife is consorting with butterflies."
"I'll do whatever it takes in order to get a kiss," she replied, giving him an arch look.
"If it's kisses you want, I'll take care of that for you," he said.
"That's an interesting thought. I think I'd like one right now. My other lover seems to have lost interest." She pointed at the butterfly, which had settled with quivering wings on a bush near the foot of the pool. "Come and kiss me, Garion."
"You're right in the middle of the deepest part of the pool," he pointed out.
"So?"
"I don't suppose you'd consider coming out."
"You offered kisses, Garion. You didn't make any conditions."
Garion sighed, stood up, and began to remove his clothing. "We're both going to regret this," he predicted. "A cold in the summertime lasts for months."
"You're not going to catch cold, Garion. Come along now."
He groaned and then waded manfully into the icy water. "You're a cruel woman, Ce'Nedra," he accused, wincing at the shocking chill.
"Don't be such a baby. Come over here."
Gritting his teeth, he plowed through the water toward her, stubbing his toe on a large rock in the process. When he reached her, she slid her cold, wet little arms around his neck and glued her lips to his. Her kiss was lingering and it pulled him slightly off balance. He felt her lips tighten slightly as she grinned impishly, even in the midst of the kiss, and then without any warning, she lifted her legs, and her weight pulled him under.
He came up sputtering and swearing.
"Wasn't that fun?" she giggled.
"Not really"' he grumbled. "Drowning isn't one of my favorite sports." She ignored that. "Now that you're all wet, you might as well swim with me."
They swam together for about a quarter of an hour and then emerged from the pool, shivering and with their lips turning blue.
"Make a fire, Garion," Ce'Nedra said through chattering teeth.
"I didn't bring any tinder," he said "or a flint."
"Do it the other way, then."
"What other way?" he asked blankly.
"You know-" She made a sort of mysterious gesture.
"Oh. I forgot about that."
"Hurry, Garion. I'm freezing."
He gathered some twigs and fallen branches, cleared a space in the moss, and concentrated his will on the pile of wood. At first, a small tendril of smoke arose, then a tongue of bright orange flame. Within a few minutes, a goodly little fire was crackling just beside the moss-covered hummock upon which the shivering Ce'Nedra was huddled.
"Oh, that's much better," she said, stretching her hands out to the fire. "You're a useful person to have around, my Lord."
"Thank you, my Lady. Would my Lady like to consider putting on some clothes?"
"Not until she's dry, she wouldn't. Ihate pulling on dry clothes over wet skin."
"Let's hope nobody comes along, then. We're not really dressed for company, you know."
"You'reso conventional, Garion."
"I suppose so," he admitted.
"Why don't you come over here beside me?" she invited. "It's much warmer here."
He couldn't really think of any reason why he shouldn't, so he joined her on the warm moss.
"See," she said, putting her arms about his neck. "Isn't this much nicer?" She kissed him -a serious kind of kiss that made his breath catch in his throat and his heart pound. When she finally released her grip about his neck, he looked around the glade nervously. A fluttering movement near the foot of the pool caught his eye. He coughed, looking slightly embarrassed.
"What's the matter?" she asked him.
"I think that butterfly is watching," he said with a slight flush.
"That's all right." she smiled, sliding her arms about his neck and kissing him again.
The world seemed unusually quiet as spring gently slipped into summer that year. The secession of the Vordues crumbled under the onslaughts of the armored Mimbrate "brigands", and the Vordue family finally capitulated, pleading with an almost genuine humility to be readmitted to the Empire. While they were not fond of Varana's tax collectors, they all ran out into the streets to greet his legions as they returned.
The news from Cthol Murgos was sketchy at best, but it appeared that things in the far south remained at an impasse, with Kal Zakath's Malloreans holding the plains and Urgit's Murgos firmly entrenched in the mountains.
Periodic reports forwarded to Garion by Drasnian Intelligence seemed to indicate that the re-emergent Bear-cult was doing little more than milling around out in the countryside.
Garion enjoyed this respite from crisis and, since there was no really pressing business, he took to sleeping late, sometimes lying in bed in a kind of luxurious doze until two or three hours past sunrise.
On one such morning about midsummer, he was having an absolutely splendid dream. He and Ce'Nedra were leaping from the loft in the barn at Faldor's farm into the soft hay piled below. He was awakened rather rudely as his wife bolted from the bed and ran into an adjoining chamber where she was violently and noisily sick.
"Ce'Nedra!" he exclaimed, jumping out of bed to follow her. "What are you doing?"
"I'm throwing up," she replied, raising her pale face from the basin she was holding on her knees.
"Are you sick?"
"No," she drawled sarcastically. "I'm doing it for fun."
"I'll get one of the physicians," he said, grabbing, up a robe.
"Never mind."
"But you're sick."
"Of course I am, but I don't need a physician."
"That doesn't make any sense, Ce'Nedra. If you're sick, you need a doctor."
"I'm supposed to be sick," she told him.
"What? "
"Don't you know anything, Garion? I'll probably get sick every morning for the next several months."
"I don't understand you at all, Ce'Nedra."
"You're impossibly dense. People in my conditionalways get sick in the morning."
"Condition? What condition?"
She rolled her eyes upward almost in despair. "Garion," she said with exaggerated patience, "do you remember that little problem we had last fall? The problem that made us send for Lady Polgara?"
"Well -yes."
"I'mso glad. Well, we don't have that problem any more."
He stared at her, slowly comprehending. "You mean- ?"
"Yes, dear," she said with a pale smile. "You're going to be a father. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll throw up again."