Читать книгу Polgara the Sorceress - David Eddings - Страница 11

I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed that my sister didn’t turn green with envy, but no triumph is ever total, is it?

Anrak’s face grew melancholy, and he sighed. He explained to Riva how much he regretted not having pressed his suit.

Isn’t that an absurd turn of phrase? It makes Anrak sound like a laundress with a hot flat-iron.

Sorry.

His rueful admission made my morning complete, and it opened whole new vistas to me. Being adored is a rather pleasant way to pass the time, wouldn’t you say? Not only that, both Anrak and his cousin automatically ennobled me by calling me ‘Lady Polgara’, and that has a rather nice ring to it.

Then Riva’s cousin came up with a number of profound misconceptions about what father calls our ‘talent’. He clearly believed that my transformation had been the result of magic and even went so far as to suggest that I could be in two places – and times – simultaneously. I rather gently tweaked his beard on that score. I found myself growing fonder and fonder of Anrak. He said such nice things about me.

It was perhaps noon by the time we went down to the harbor to board Riva’s ship. Beldaran and I had never seen the sea before, nor a ship, for that matter, and we both were a little apprehensive about our upcoming voyage. The weather was fine, though there were all those waves out there. I’m not sure exactly what we’d expected, but all the ponds in the Vale had absolutely flat surfaces, so we weren’t prepared for waves. There was also a peculiar odor about the sea. It had a sharp tang to it that overlaid the more disgusting smells that characterize every harbor in the world. I suppose it’s human nature to dispose of garbage in the simplest way possible, but it struck me as improvident to dump it into a body of water that’ll return it to you on each incoming tide.

The ship seemed quite large to me, but I found the cabins below decks tiny and cramped, and everything seemed to be coated with a black, greasy substance. ‘What’s that smeared all over the walls?’ I asked uncle Beldin.

‘Tar,’ he replied with an indifferent shrug. ‘It helps to keep the water out.’

That sort of alarmed me. ‘The boat’s made of wood,’ I said. ‘Isn’t wood supposed to float?’

‘Only when it’s one solid piece, Pol. The sea wants to have a level surface, and empty places under that surface offend it, so it tries to seep in and fill up those spaces. And the tar keeps the wood from rotting.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘I’m sure your opinion hurts its feelings.’

‘You always have to try to be clever, don’t you, uncle?’

‘Look upon it as a character defect if you like.’ He grinned.

After Beldaran and I had deposited our belongings in our tiny cabin, we went back up on deck. Riva’s sailors were making the vessel ready to depart. They were burly, bearded men, many of whom were stripped to the waist. All that bare skin made me just a little jumpy for some reason.

There seemed to be ropes everywhere – an impossible snarl passing through pulleys and running upward in an incomprehensible tangle. The sailors untied the ropes that held the ship up against the wharf, and then pushed us a ways out and took their places at the oars. One ruffian with an evil face sat cross-legged in the stern and began to pound rhythmically on a hide-topped drum to set the pace for the oarsmen. The ship moved slowly out through the crowded harbor toward the open sea.

Once we were past the breakwater, the sailors pulled in their oars and began hauling on various ropes. I still don’t fully understand exactly how a sailor can tell one rope from another, but Riva’s men seemed to know what they were doing. Large horizontal beams with tightly rolled canvas attached to them crept up the masts as the chanting sailors pulled on the ropes in a unison set by the rhythm of the chant. The pulleys squealed as the canvas-bearing beams rose to the tops of the masts. Then aloft, other sailors, agile as monkeys, untied the canvas and let it roll down. The sails hung slack for a few moments. Then a breeze caught them and they bellied out with a booming sound.

The ship rolled slightly to one side, and then it began to move. Water foamed as the bow of the ship cut into the waves, and the breeze of our passage touched my face and tossed my hair. The waves were not high enough to be alarming, and Riva’s ship mounted each one with stately pace and then majestically ran down the far side.

I absolutely loved it!

The ship and the sea became unified, and there was a music to that unification, a music of groaning timbers, creaking ropes, and booming sails. We moved out across the sun-touched waves with the music of the sea filling our ears.

I’ve frequently made light, disparaging remarks about Alorns and their fascination with the sea, but there’s a kind of holiness in it – almost as if true sailors have a different God. They don’t just love the sea; they worship it, and in my heart I know why.

‘I can’t see the land any more!’ Beldaran exclaimed that evening, looking apprehensively sternward.

‘You aren’t supposed to, love,’ Riva told her gently. ‘We’d never get home if we tried to keep the Sendarian coast in plain sight the whole way to the Isle.’

The sunset on the sea ahead of us was glorious, and when the moon rose, she built a broad, gleaming highway across the glowing surface of the night-dark sea.

All bemused by the beauty around me, I sat down on a convenient barrel, crossed my arms on the rail, and set my chin on them to drink in the sense of the sea. I remained in that reverie all through the night, and the sea claimed me as her own. My childhood had been troubled, filled with resentments and a painful, almost mortifying sense of my own inadequacy. The sea calmed those troubled feelings with her serene immensity. Did it really matter that one little girl with skinned knees felt all pouty because the world didn’t genuflect every time she walked by? The sea didn’t seem to think so, and increasingly as the hours passed, neither did I.

The dawn announced her coming with a pale light just above the sternward horizon. The world seemed filled with a grey, shadowless luminescence, and the dark water became as molten silver. When the sun, made ruddy by the sea mist, mounted above the eastern horizon, he filled my heart with a wonder such as I’d never known before.

But the sea wasn’t done with me yet. Her face was like molten glass, and then something immense swelled up from beneath without actually breaking the surface. The resulting surge was untouched by foam or silly little splashings. It was far too profound for that kind of childish display. I felt a sudden sense of superstitious terror. The mythology of the world positively teems with sea-monsters, and Beltira and Belkira had amused Beldaran and me when we were very young by telling us stories, usually of Alorn origin. No sea-going people will ever pass up the chance to talk about sea-monsters, after all.

‘What’s that?’ I asked a sleepy-eyed sailor who’d just come up on deck, and I pointed at the disturbance in the water.

He squinted over the rail. ‘Oh,’ he said in an off-hand way, ‘those be whales, my Lady.’

‘Whales?’

‘Big fish, my Lady.’ He squinted at the sea again. ‘It’s the time of year when they flock together. I’d guess that there be quite a few down there.’

‘Is that why the water’s bulging up like that – because there are so many?’

‘No, my Lady. One whale all by himself can make the sea heave that way.’

I was sure he was exaggerating, but then an enormous dark form erupted from the water like a mountain aborning. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Nothing alive could be that big!

Then he crashed with a boom back into the sea, sending great sheets of water in all directions, and he slapped his tail down against the surface with another huge noise and disappeared.

Then he jumped again, and again.

He was playing!

And then he was not alone. Other whales also came surging up out of the sea to leap and play in the morning sun like a crowd of overgrown children frolicking in a play yard.

And they laughed! Their voices were high-pitched, but they were not squeaky. There was a profound depth to them and a kind of yearning.

One of them – I think it was that first one – rolled over on his side to look at me with one huge eye. There were wrinkles around that eye as if he were very, very old, and there was a profound wisdom there.

And then he winked at me and plunged back into the depths.

No matter how long I live, I’ll always remember that strange meeting. In some obscure way it’s shaped my entire view of the world and of everything that’s hidden beneath the surface of ordinary reality. That single event made the tedious journey from the Vale and this voyage worthwhile – and more.

We were another two days reaching Riva, and I spent those days filled with the wonder of the sea and of those creatures she supported as a mother supports her children.

The Isle of the Winds is a bleak, inhospitable place that rises out of a usually storm-tossed sea, and when viewed from the water the city seems as unwelcoming as the rock upon which it’s built. It rises steeply from the harbor in a series of narrow terraces, and each row of houses stands at the brink of the terrace upon which it’s built. The seaward walls of those houses are thick and windowless, and battlements surmount them. In effect this makes the city little more than a series of impenetrable walls rising one after another to the Citadel which broods down over the entire community. Whole races could hurl themselves at Riva with no more effect than the waves have upon the cliffs of the Isle itself. As the Master said, ‘All the tides of Angarak cannot prevail against it,’ and when you add the Cherek fleet patrolling the waters just off the coast, you have the potential for the extinction of any race foolish enough even to contemplate the notion of making war on the Rivans. Torak’s crazy, but he’s not that crazy.

Beldaran and I had taken some rather special pains to make ourselves presentable that morning. Beldaran was to be Queen of Riva, and she wanted to make a good impression on her future subjects. I was not going to be the queen, and my target was a certain specific segment of the population. I was rather carefully taking aim at all the young men, and I think I hit most of them. What a glorious thing it is to be universally adored! My father’s slightly worried expression made my morning complete.

‘Don’t let it go to your head, Polgara,’ mother’s voice cautioned me. ‘What you’re seeing on all those vacant faces isn’t love. Young males of all species have urges that they can’t really control. In their eyes you’re not a person; you’re an object. You don’t really want to be no more than a thing, do you?’

The prospect of incipient thinghood put a slight damper on my enjoyment of the moment.

Traditionally, Rivans wear grey clothing. As a matter of fact, the other western races call them ‘grey-cloaks’. Young people, however, tend to ignore the customs of their elders. Adolescent rebellion has been responsible for all manner of absurd costumes. The more ridiculous a certain fashion is, the more adolescents will cling to it. The young men crowding the edge of the wharf with yearning eyes put me in mind of a flower garden planted by someone with absolutely no sense of taste. There were doublets down there in hues I didn’t even have names for, and some of those short jackets were varicolored, and the colors clashed hideously. Each of my worshipers, however, was absolutely convinced that his clothing was so splendid that no girl in her right mind could possibly resist him.

I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to burst out laughing. My father’s concern about what he felt to be my fragile chastity was totally inappropriate. I wasn’t going to surrender to some adolescent whose very appearance sent me off into gales of laughter.

After the sailors had snubbed up the mooring ropes, we disembarked and started up the stairs that lead from the harbor to Riva’s Citadel. That series of stair-stepping walls that are part of the city’s defenses were revealed as a part of the houses in which the Rivans lived. The houses seemed bleak on the outside, but I’ve since discovered that the interiors of those houses are places of beauty. In many ways they are like the Rivans themselves. All the beauty is on the inside. The streets of Riva are narrow and monotonously straight. I strongly suspect that Riva had been guided by Belar in the construction of the city. Everything about it has a defensive purpose.

There was a shallow courtyard surrounded by a massive wall at the top of the stairs. The size of the roughly squared-off stones in that wall startled me. The amount of sheer physical labor which had gone into the construction of the city was staggering. We entered the Citadel through a great iron-bound door, and I found the interior of my sister’s new home depressingly bleak. It took us quite some time to reach our quarters. Beldaran and I were temporarily ensconced in a quite pleasant set of rooms. I say temporarily because Beldaran would soon be moving into the royal apartment.

‘You’re having fun, aren’t you, Pol?’ My sister asked me once we were alone. Her voice seemed just a bit wistful, and she spoke in ‘twin’.

‘I don’t exactly follow you,’ I replied.

‘Now that you’ve decided to be pretty, you’ve got every young man you come across fawning all over you.’

‘You’ve always been pretty, Beldaran,’ I reminded her.

She sighed a rather sweet little sigh. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I never got the chance to play with it. What’s it like to have everybody around you dumbstruck with adoration?’

‘I rather like it.’ I laughed. They’re all very foolish, though. If you’re hungry for adoration, get yourself a puppy.’

She also laughed. ‘I wonder if all young men are as silly as these Rivans are. I’d sort of hate to be the queen of the idiots.’

‘Mother says that it’s more or less universal,’ I told her, ‘and it’s not just humans. Wolves are the same way, and so are rabbits. She says that all young males have what she calls “urges”. The Gods arranged it that way, I guess – so that there’ll always be a lot of puppies.’

‘That’s a depressing turn of phrase, Pol. It sort of implies that all I’m here for is to produce babies.’

‘Mother says that passes after a while. I guess it’s supposed to be fun, so enjoy it while you can.’

She blushed.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go break a few hearts.’

There was a large hall near the center of the Citadel that seemed to be where the members of Riva’s court gathered for fun and games. The throne room was reserved for more formal occasions, and unlike the rowdy throne room in Val Alorn where the Chereks mixed business and pleasure, Riva’s Citadel had separate places for separate activities. The door to the hall was open, and I peeked around the edge of that door to assess my competition.

Rivan girls, like all Alorns, tend to be blonde, and I saw an immediate advantage there. My dark hair would make me stand out in the middle of what appeared to be a wheat field. The young people in that large room were doing young-people things, flirting, showing off, and the like. I waited, biding my time until one of those lulls in the general babble hushed the room. Somehow I instinctively knew that the hush would eventually come. That was when I’d make my appearance. Entrances are very important in these circumstances.

I finally got a little tired of waiting. ‘Make them be still, mother,’ I pleaded with the presence that had been in my mind since before I was born.

‘Oh, dear,’ mother sighed.

Then a hush fell over the brightly dressed throng.

I’d considered the notion of some kind of fanfare, but that might have been just a trifle ostentatious. Instead, I simply stepped into the precise center of the doorway and stopped, waiting for them all to notice me. My blue gown was rather nice, so I was sure I’d attract attention.

I think mother – or possibly Aldur – had fallen in with my scheme. There was a fairly large window high in the wall opposite the door and after I’d stood in the doorway for a moment, the sun broke through the clouds which almost perpetually veiled the Isle, and its light came through the window to fall full upon me.

That was even better than a fanfare. I stood regally in the middle of that sun-flooded doorway, letting all the eyes in the room feast themselves on me.

Dear Gods, that was enjoyable!

All right, it was vain and a little silly. So what? I was young.

There was a small group of musicians at the far end of the room – I’d hardly call them an orchestra – and they struck up a tune as I regally entered the hall. As I’d rather hoped they would, most of the young men began to move in my general direction, each of them mentally refining some opening remark that he hoped would get my attention. You have no idea how strained and inane some of those remarks were. After about the fourth time someone compared my eyes to a spring sky, I began to realize that unrestrained creativity was not exactly rampant among adolescents. It somehow seemed that I was adrift in a sea of platitudes. I got compared to summer days, starry nights, and dark, snow-capped peaks – a rather obvious reference to the white streak in my hair. They swarmed around me like a flock of sparrows, elbowing each other out of the way. The Rivan girls began to look a little sulky about the whole business.

A young blond fellow in a green doublet – quite handsome, actually – pushed his way to the forefront of my suitors and bowed rather floridly. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Lady Polgara, I presume?’ That was a novel approach. He gave me a rather sly smile. ‘Tedious, isn’t it? All this empty conversation, I mean. How much time can one really spend talking about the weather?’

That earned him a few dark looks as a number of my suitors hastily revised their opening remarks.

‘I’m certain you and I can find something more pleasant to talk about,’ he continued smoothly, ‘politics, theology, or current fashion, if you’d like.’ He actually seemed to have a mind.

‘We might want to think about that a bit,’ I countered. ‘What’s your name?’

He slapped his forehead in feigned chagrin. ‘How stupid of me,’ he said. ‘How could I possibly have been so absentminded?’ He sighed theatrically. ‘It’s a failing of mine, I’m afraid. Sometimes I think I need a keeper.’ He gave me a sly look. ‘Would you care to volunteer for the post?’ he offered.

‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ I reminded him, ignoring his offer.

‘You really shouldn’t let me get sidetracked that way, Lady Polgara,’ he chided gently. ‘Before I forget again, I’m Kamion, an incipient baron – just as soon as my childless uncle dies. Where were we?’

I’ll confess that I liked him. His approach had some genuine originality, and his little-boy manner was appealing. I realized at that point that this whole business might just be a bit more challenging than I’d expected. Not all of my suitors were freshly weaned puppies. Some of them even had brains. That was rather refreshing. After all, if you’ve seen one furiously wagging tail, you’ve seen them all. I actually experienced a slight twinge of disappointment when the swarming suitors swept Kamion away.

The platitudes came thick and fast after that, but nobody chose to talk about the weather for some reason.

The Rivan girls grew sulkier and sulkier, and just to tweak them a little more I dispensed a number of dazzlingly regal smiles. My suitors found those smiles absolutely enchanting; the girls didn’t.

The afternoon progressed in a very satisfactory way, and then the musicians – lutanists for the most part – struck up a new tune, and a thin, weedy young man dressed all in black and wearing a studiously melancholy expression pushed his way forward. ‘Would you care to dance, Lady Polgara?’ he asked me in a broken-hearted tone. He bowed. ‘Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Merot the poet, and I might be able to compose a sonnet for you while we dance.’

‘I’m very sorry, my lord Merot,’ I replied, ‘but I’ve lived in isolation, so I don’t really know how to dance.’ It wasn’t true, of course. Beldaran and I had been inventing dances since we were children, but I was fairly certain that the rhythm of a meadowlark’s song might be just a little difficult for this self-proclaimed poet to comprehend.

Merot was obviously a poseur, but so were most of the others. He seemed to think that his carefully manicured short black beard and tragic expression made him irresistible to all the girls. I didn’t have too much trouble resisting him, though. Maybe it was his rancid breath that made me keep my distance.

‘Ah,’ he responded to my confession of terpsichorean ineptitude, ‘what a pity.’ Then his gloomy eyes brightened. ‘I could give you private lessons, if you’d like.’

‘We might discuss that sometime,’ I parried, still staying back from that foul breath.

‘Might I offer you a poem then?’ he suggested.

That would be nice.’

What a mistake that was! Merot assumed an oratorical stance and began to recite in a tediously slow manner with that gloomy voice of his. He spoke as if the fate of the universe hung on his every word. I didn’t notice the sun darken, though, or feel any earthquakes.

He went on and on and on, and his pose as a poet was much, much better than his actual verse. Of course I wasn’t really acquainted with poetry at that stage of my life, but it seemed to me that lingering lovingly over every single syllable is not really the best way to keep the attention of your audience. At first I found him tedious. Tedious descended rather rapidly into boring, and boring disintegrated into near despair. I rather theatrically rolled my eyes upward. Several of my suitors caught the hint immediately and moved in to rescue me.

Merot was still standing in the same place reciting as the crowd flowed away from him. He might have loved me, but he obviously loved himself more.

The other ladies in the room were growing increasingly discontented, I noticed. Despite their fairly obvious expressions of invitation, the dance floor remained deserted. My suitors evidently didn’t want to be distracted. Quite a few of the ladies pled headaches and quietly left the room. It might have been my imagination, but after they left I seemed to hear a gnawing sound – a sound that was remarkably like the sound of someone eating her own liver. There was a certain musical quality about that to my ears.

Then, as evening began to descend upon the Isle of the Winds, Taygon came up to join me. Taygon did not have to elbow his way through the crowd. Everybody got out of his way. He was big. He was burly. He was garbed in chain mail. He had a huge blond beard. He wore a sword. ‘Lady Polgara!’ he said in a booming voice, ‘I’ve been looking for you!’

That was ominous. ‘I’m Taygon the Warrior. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. My deeds are renowned throughout the length and breadth of Aloria.’

‘I’m terribly sorry, Lord Taygon,’ I apologized in mock confusion. ‘I grew up in almost total isolation, so I don’t really know what’s going on in the world – besides, I’m just a silly girl.’

‘I’ll kill any man who says so!’ He glared at the others threateningly.

How on earth was I going to deal with this barbarian? Then I made a mistake – one of several that day. ‘Ah –’ I floundered, ‘since I’ve been so out of touch, I’d be enthralled to hear of some of your exploits.’

Please be a little more forgiving. I was an absolute novice that day, after all.

‘My pleasure, Lady Polgara.’ It might have been his pleasure, but it certainly wasn’t mine. Did he have to be so graphic? As he spoke, I suddenly found myself awash in a sea of blood and looking out at an entire mountain range of loose brains. Brightly colored entrails snarled around my feet, and disconnected extremities floated by – twitching.

It was only by a supreme act of will that I was able to keep from throwing up all over the front of his chain-mail shirt.

Then dear, dear Kamion rescued me. ‘Excuse me, Sir Taygon, but Lady Polgara’s sister, our future queen, requires her presence. I know that we’ll all be made desolate by her absence, but a royal command cannot be disobeyed. I’m certain that a warrior of your vast experience can understand the importance of obeying orders.’

‘Oh, of course, Kamion,’ Taygon replied automatically. He bowed clumsily to me. ‘You must hurry, Lady Polgara. We mustn’t keep the Queen waiting.’

I curtsied to him, not trusting myself to answer. Then Kamion took my elbow and guided me away.

‘When you come back,’ Taygon called after me, ‘I’ll tell you about how I disemboweled an offensive Arend.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ I said rather weakly over my shoulder.

‘Do you really want to hear about it, my Lady?’ Kamion murmured to me.

‘Frankly, my dear Kamion, I’d sooner take poison’

He laughed. ‘I rather thought you might feel that way about it. Your face was definitely taking on a slight greenish cast there toward the end.’

Oh, Kamion was smooth. I began to admire him almost in spite of myself.

‘Well?’ my sister asked when I rejoined her, ‘how was it?’

‘Just wonderful!’ I replied exultantly. They were all smitten with me. I was the absolute center of attention.’

‘You’ve got a cruel streak in you, Polgara.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’ve been cooped up in here all afternoon, and you’ve come back to rub my nose in all your conquests.’

‘Would I do that?’ I asked her archly.

‘Of course you would. I can see you absolutely running through the halls to get back so that you could gloat’ Then she laughed. ‘I’m sorry, Pol. I couldn’t resist that.’

‘You’re above all that now, Beldaran,’ I told her. ‘You’ve already caught the man you want. I’m still fishing.’

‘I’m not sure that I’m the one who really caught him. There were a lot of other people involved in that fishing trip, too: Aldur, father – mother, too, probably. The notion of an arranged marriage is just a little humiliating.’

‘You do love Riva, don’t you?’

‘Of course. It’s humiliating all the same. All right, tell me what happened. I want every single detail.’

I described my afternoon, and my sister and I spent a great deal of our time laughing. Even as I had, Beldaran particularly enjoyed the reaction of the Rivan girls.

That afternoon was my last unsupervised excursion into the untamed jungle of the adolescent mating ritual. From then on, father sat scowling in a spot where everybody could see him. It wasn’t really necessary, of course, but there was no way that father could know that mother was already keeping an eye on me. His presence did set certain limits on the enthusiasm of my suitors, and I was of two minds about that. None of my suitors were likely to go too far with him sitting there, but I was fairly sure that I could take care of myself, and father’s insistence on being present robbed me of the chance to find out if I could.

For some reason Kamion made father particularly nervous, and I couldn’t understand exactly why. Kamion had exquisite manners, and he never once did anything at all offensive. Why did my aged sire dislike him so much?

Got you that time, didn’t I, Old Wolf?

Then King Cherek and his sons, Dras Bull-neck and Algar Fleet-foot, arrived for the wedding, and things began to get just a bit more serious. Despite the way Beldaran and Riva felt about each other, my sister had been right. Theirs was an arranged marriage. The possibility that my father might also decide to arrange one for me – just to protect me from all those fawning suitors – raised its ugly head. There was in those days – probably even still existing – the idea that women are intellectually inferior to men. Men did – and many still do – automatically assume that women are empty-headed ninnies who’ll fall prey to the first glib young man who comes along with certain ideas in his mind. The result, of course, is the virtual imprisonment of almost all women of a certain rank. What my father and all those other primitives can’t seem to realize is that we’ll resent that imprisonment and go to almost any lengths to circumvent it. That might help to explain why so many girls become involved with inappropriate young men. In most cases the character of the young man doesn’t make a jot of difference. The girl in question is driven by a desire to show them that she can do it, rather than by empty-headed lust.

That’s frequently the reason for so many arranged marriages. The father marries his daughter off as soon as possible to ‘protect’ her. After she marries, any dalliances she chooses to take up to amuse herself are her husband’s problem.

The possibility that father might choose to shackle me to either Dras or Algar made me distinctly uneasy for a while.