Queen Of Sorcery Part 23

"The best kind of agreement," Ran Borune approved.

"Taur Urgas, King of the Murgos, sends greetings," Asharak said. "His Majesty feels most keenly the desirability of cementing relations between Cthol Murgos and Tolnedra. He hopes that one day he may call your Imperial Highness brother."

"We respect the peaceful intentions and legendary wisdom of Taur Urgas." The Emperor smiled with a certain smugness.

Asharak looked around, his black eyes flat. "Well, Ambar," he said to Silk, "your fortunes seem to have improved since we met last in Mingan's counting room in Darine."

Silk spread his hands in an innocent-looking gesture. "The G.o.ds have been kind - most of them, anyway."

Asharak smiled briefly.

"You know each other?" the Emperor asked, a bit surprised.

"We've met, your Highnes," Silk admitted.

"In another kingdom," Asharak added. He looked directly then at Mister Wolf. "Belgarath," he said politely with a brief nod.

"Chamdar," the old man replied.

"You're looking well."

"Thank you."

"It seems that I'm the only stranger here," the Emperor said.

"Chamdar and I have known each other for a very long time," Mister Wolf told him. He glanced at the Murgo with a faintly malicious twinkle in his eyes. "I see that you've managed to recover from your recent indisposition."

Asharak's face flickered with annoyance, and he looked quickly at his shadow on the gra.s.s as if for rea.s.surance.

Garion remembered what Wolf had said atop the tor after the attack of the Algroths - something about a shadow returning by an "indirect route." For some reason the information that Asharak the Murgo and Chamdar the Grolim were the same man did not particularly surprise him. Like a complex melody that had been faintly out of tune, the sudden merging of the two seemed right somehow. The knowledge clicked in his mind like a key in a lock.

"Someday you'll have to show me how you did that," Asharak was saying. "I found the experience interesting. My horse had hysterics, however."

"My apologies to your horse."

"Why is it that I feel as if I'm missing about half of this conversation?" Ran Borune asked.

"Forgive us, your Highness," Asharak said. "Ancient Belgarath and I are renewing an old enmity. We've seldom had the opportunity to speak to each other with any degree of civility." He turned and bowed politely to Aunt Pol. "My Lady Polgara. You're as beautiful as ever." He eyed her with a deliberately suggestive stare.

"You haven't changed much either, Chamdar." Her tone was mild, even bland, but Garion, who knew her so well, recognized immediately the deadly insult she had just delivered to the Grolim.

"Charming," Asharak said with a faint smile.

"This is better than a play," the Emperor cried delightedly. "You people are actually dripping with malice. I wish I'd had the opportunity to see the first act."

"The first act was very long, your Highness," Asharak said, "and quite often tedious. As you may have noticed, Belgarath sometimes gets carried away with his own cleverness."

"I'm certain I'll be able to make up for that," Mister Wolf told him with a slight smile. "I promise you that the last act will be extremely short, Chamdar."

"Threats, old man?" Asharak asked. "I thought we'd agreed to be civilized."

"I can't recall when we ever agreed on anything," Wolf said. He turned to the Emperor. "I think we'll leave now, Ran Borune," he said. "With your permission, of course."

"Of course," the Emperor replied. "I'm pleased to have met youthough I still don't believe in you, naturally. My skepticism, however, is theological, not personal."

"I'm glad of that," Wolf said, and quite suddenly he grinned impishly at the Emperor.

Ran Borune laughed.

"I look forward to our next meeting, Belgarath," Asharak said.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Wolf advised him, then turned and led the way out of the Emperor's garden.

Chapter Seventeen.

IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON when they emerged from the palace gate. The broad lawns were green in the warm spring sunlight, and the cypress trees stirred in a faint breeze.

"I don't think we want to stay in Tol Honeth too much longer," Wolf said.

"Do we leave now, then?" Mandorallen asked.

"There's something I have to do first," Wolf replied, squinting into the sunlight. "Barak and his cousin will come along with me. The rest of you go on back to Grinneg's house and wait there."

"We'll stop by the central market on our way," Aunt Pol told him. "There are a few things I need."

"This isn't a shopping expedition, Pol."

"The Grolims already know we're here, father," she said, "so there's no point in creeping about like sneak thieves, is there?"

He sighed. "All right, Pol."

"I knew you'd see it my way," she said.

Mister Wolf shook his head helplessly and rode off with Barak and Grinneg. The rest of them rode down the hill from the palace toward the gleaming city below. The streets at the foot of the hill were broad and lined on either side by magnificent houses-each almost a palace in itself.

"The rich and the n.o.ble," Silk said. "In Tol Honeth, the closer you live to the palace, the more important you are."

"'Tis oft times thus, Prince Kheldar," Mandorallen observed. "Wealth and position sometimes need the rea.s.surance of proximity to the seat of power. By ostentation and propinquity to the throne, small men are able to avoid facing their own inadequacy."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Silk said.

The central marketplace of Tol Honeth was a vast square filled with bright-colored booths and stalls where a significant portion of the goods of the world were on display. Aunt Pol dismounted, left her horse with one of the Cherek guards, and moved busily from booth to booth, buying, it appeared, almost everything in sight. Silk's face blanched often at her purchases, since he was paying for them.

"Can't you talk to her?" the small man pleaded with Garion. "She's destroying me."

"What makes you think she'd listen to me?" Garion asked.

"You could at least try, " Silk said desperately.

Three richly mantled men stood near the center of the market, arguing heatedly.

"You're mad, Haldor," one of them, a thin man with a snub nose, said agitatedly. "The Honeths would strip the Empire for their own profit." His face was flushed, and his eyes bulged dangerously.

"Would Kador of the Vorduvians be any better?" the stout man named Haldor demanded. "You're the one who's mad, Radan. If we put Kador on the throne, he'll grind us all under foot. There's such a thing as being too imperial."

"How dare you?" Radan almost screamed, his perspiring face growing darker. "Grand Duke Kador is the only possible choice. I'd vote for him even if he hadn't paid me." He flung his arms about wildly as he talked, and his tongue seemed to stumble over his words.

"Kador's a pig," Haldor said flatly, carefully watching Radan as if gauging the impact of his words. "An arrogant, brutal pig with no more right to the throne than a mongrel dog. His great-grandfather bought his way into the House of Vordue, and I'd sooner open a vein than bow to the offspring of a sneak thief from the docks of Tol Vordue."

Radan's eyes almost started from his head at Haldor's calculated insults. He opened his mouth several times as if trying to speak, but his tongue seemed frozen with fury. His face turned purple, and he clawed at the air in front of him. Then his body stiffened and began to arch backward.

Haldor watched him with an almost clinical detachment.

With a strangled cry, Radan toppled back onto the cobblestones, his arms and legs thres.h.i.+ng violently. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he began to foam at the mouth as his convulsions became more violent. He began to bang his head on the stones, and his twitching fingers clutched at his throat.

"Amazing potency," the third mantled man said to Haldor. "Where did you find it?"

"A friend of mine recently made a voyage to Sthiss Tor," Haldor said, watching Radan's convulsions with interest. "The beautiful part of it is that it's completely harmless unless one gets excited. Radan wouldn't drink the wine until I tasted it first to prove that it was safe."

"You've got the same poison in your own stomach?" the other man asked with astonishment.

"I'm quite safe," Haldor said. "My emotions never get the best of me."

Radan's convulsions had grown weaker. His heels beat at the stones with a rapid pattering sound; then he stiffened, gave a long, gurgling sigh, and died.

"I don't suppose you've got any of the drug left, do you?" Haldor's friend asked thoughtfully. "I'd be willing to pay quite a bit for something like that."

Haldor laughed. "Why don't we go to my house, and we'll talk about it? Over a cup of wine, perhaps?"

The other man threw him a startled glance; then he laughed too, although a bit nervously. The two of them turned and walked away, leaving the dead man sprawled on the stones.

Garion stared in horror at them and then at the black-faced corpse lying so grotesquely twisted in the center of the marketplace. The Tolnedrans near the body seemed to ignore its existence. "Why doesn't somebody do something?" he demanded.

"They're afraid," Silk said. "If they show any concern, they might be mistaken for partisans. Politics here in Tol Honeth are taken very seriously."

"Shouldn't someone notify the authorities?" Durnik suggested, his face pale and his voice shaking.

"I'm sure it's already been taken care of," Silk said. "Let's not stand around staring. I don't think we want to get involved in this sort of thing."

Aunt Pol came back to where they were standing. The two Cherek warriors from Grinneg's house who had been accompanying her were loaded down with bundles and both of them looked a little sheepish about it.

"What are you doing?" she asked Silk.

"We were just watching a bit of Tolnedran politics in action," Silk said, pointing at the dead man in the center of the square.

"Poison?" she asked, noting Radan's contorted limbs.

Silk nodded. "A strange one. It doesn't seem to work unless the victim gets excited."

"Athsat," she said with a grim nod.

"You've heard of it before?" Silk seemed surprised.

She nodded. "It's quite rare, and very expensive. I didn't think the Nyissans would be willing to sell any of it."

"I think we should move away from here," Hettar suggested. "There's a squad of legionnaires coming, and they might want to question any witnesses."

"Good idea," Silk said and led them toward the far side of the marketplace.

Near the row of houses that marked the edge of the square, eight burly men carried a heavily veiled litter. As the litter approached, a slender, jeweled hand reached languidly out from behind the veil and touched one of the porters on the shoulder. The eight men stopped immediately and set the litter down.

"Silk," a woman's voice called from within the litter, "what are you doing back in Tol Honeth?"

"Bethra?" Silk said. "Is that you?"

The veil was drawn back, revealing a lushly endowed woman lounging on crimson satin cus.h.i.+ons inside the litter. Her dark hair was elaborately curled with strings of pearls woven into her tresses. Her pink silken gown clung to her body, and golden rings and bracelets clasped her arms and fingers. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful, and her long-lashed eyes were wicked. There was about her a kind of overripeness and an almost overpowering sense of self indulgent corruption. For some reason Garion felt himself blus.h.i.+ng furiously.

"I thought you'd still be running," she said archly to Silk. "The men I sent after you were very professional."

Silk bowed with an ironic little flourish. "They were quite good, Bethra," he agreed with a wry grin. "Not quite good enough, but very good, actually. I hope you didn't need them anymore."

"I always wondered why they didn't come back." She laughed. "I should have known, of course. I hope you didn't take it personally."

"Certainly not, Bethra. It's just part of the profession, after all."

"I knew you'd understand," she said. "I had to get rid of you. You were disrupting my entire plan."

Silk grinned wickedly. "I know," he gloated. "And after all you had to go through to set it up - and with the Thullish amba.s.sador, no less."

She made a disgusted face.

"Whatever happened to him?" Silk asked.

"He went swimming in the Nedrane."

"I didn't know that Thulls swam all that well."

"They don't - particularly not with large rocks tied to their feet. After you'd destroyed the whole thing, I didn't really need him anymore, and there were some things I didn't want him mentioning in certain quarters."

"You always were prudent, Bethra."

"What are you up to now?" she asked curiously.