"Nachak will have you killed for this, Lelldorin," Torasin cried. "We've all been sworn to secrecy on a blood oath."
"Tell the Murgo that I spit on his oath," Lelldorin said hotly. "What need have Asturian patriots for a Murgo henchman?"
"He's providing us with gold, you blockhead!" Torasin raged, almost
beside himself. "We need his good red gold to buy the uniforms, the
swords, and to strengthen the backbones of some of our weaker friends."
"I don't need weaklings with me," Lelldorin said intensely. "A
patriot does what he does for love of his country-not for Angarak gold."
Garion's mind was moving quickly now. His moment of stunned amazement
had passed. "There was a man in Cherek," he recalled. "The Earl of
Jarvik. He also took Murgo gold and plotted to kill a king."
The two stared at him blankly.
"Something happens to a country when you kill its king," Garion
explained. "No matter how bad the king is or how good the people are who
kill him, the country falls apart for a while. Everything is confused,
and there's nobody to point the country in any one direction. Then, if
you start a war between that country and another one at the same time,
you add just that much more confusion. I think that if I were a Murgo,
that's exactly the kind of confusion I'd want to see in all the kingdoms
of the West."
Garion listened to his own voice almost in amazement. There was a
dry, dispassionate quality in it that he instantly recognized. From the
time of his earliest memories that voice had always been there - inside
his mind - occupying some quiet, hidden corner, telling him when he was
wrong or foolish. But the voice had never actively interfered before in
his dealings with other people. Now, however, it spoke directly to these
two young men, patiently explaining.
"Angarak gold isn't what it seems to be," he went on. "There's a kind
of power in it that corrupts you. Maybe that's why it's the color of
blood. I'd think about that before I accepted any more red gold from
this Murgo Nachak. Why do you suppose he's giving you gold and helping
you with this plan of yours? He's not an Asturian, so patriotism
couldn't have anything to do with it, could it? I'd think about that,
too."
Lelldorin and his cousin looked suddenly troubled.
"I'm not going to say anything about this to anybody," Garion said.
"You told me about it in confidence, and I really wasn't supposed to
hear about it anyway. But remember that there's a lot more going on in
the world right now than what's happening here in Arendia. Now I think
I'd like to get some sleep. If you'll show me where my bed is, I'll
leave you to talk things over all night, if you'd like."
All in all, Garion thought he'd handled the whole thing rather well.
He'd planted a few doubts at the very least. He knew Arends well enough
by now to realize that it probably wouldn't be enough to turn these two
around, but it was a start.
Part one arendia Chapter Four
THE FOLLOWING MORNING they rode out early while the mist still hung
among the trees. Count Reldegen, wrapped in a dark cloak, stood at his
gate to bid them farewell; and Torasin, standing beside his father,
seemed unable to take his eyes off Garion's face. Garion kept his
expression as blank as possible. The fiery young Asturian seemed to be
filled with doubts, and those doubts might keep him from plunging
headlong into something disastrous. It wasn't much, Garion realized, but
it was the best he could manage under the circumstances."Come back
soon, Belgarath," Reldegen said. "Sometime when you can stay longer.
We're very isolated here, and I'd like to know what the rest of the
world's doing. We'll sit by the fire and talk away a month or two.
Mister Wolf nodded gravely. "Maybe when this business of mine is
over, Reldegen." Then he turned his horse and led the way across the
wide clearing that surrounded Reldegen's house and back once again into
the gloomy forest.
"The count's an unusual Arend," Silk said lightly as they rode along.
"I think I actually detected an original thought or two in him last
evening."
"He's changed a great deal," Wolf agreed.
"He sets a good table," Barak said. "I haven't felt this full since I left Val Alorn."
"You should," Aunt Pol told him. "You ate the biggest part of one deer by yourself."
"You're exaggerating, Polgara," Barak said.
"But not by very much," Hettar observed in his quiet voice. Lelldorin
had pulled his horse in beside Garion's, but he had not spoken. His
face was as troubled as his cousin's had been. It was obvious that he
wanted to say something and just as obvious that he didn't know how to
begin.
"Go ahead," Garion said quietly. "We're good enough friends that I'm
not going to be upset if it doesn't come out exactly right."
Lelldorin looked a little sheepish.
"Am I really that obvious?"
"Honest is a better word for it," Garion told him. "You've just never learned to hide your feelings, that's all."
"Was it really true?" Lelldorin blurted. "I'm not doubting your word,
but was there really a Murgo in Cherek plotting against King Anheg?"
"Ask Silk," Garion suggested, "or Barak, or Hettar-any of them. We were all there."
"Nachak isn't like that, though," Lelldorin said quickly, defensively.
"Can you be sure?" Garion asked him. "The plan was his in the first place, wasn't it? How did you happen to meet him?"
"We'd all gone down to the Great Fair, Torasin, me, several of the
others. We bought some things from a Murgo merchant, and Tor made a few
remarks about Mimbrates-you know how Tor is. The merchant said that he
knew somebody we might be interested in meeting and he introduced us to
Nachak. The more we talked with him, the more sympathetic he seemed to
become to the way we felt."
"Naturally."
"He told us what the king is planning. You wouldn't believe it."
"Probably not."
Lelldorin gave him a quick, troubled look. "He's going to break up
our estates and give them to landless Mimbrate nobles." He said it
accusingly.
"Did you verify that with anybody but Nachak?"
"How could we? The Mimbrates wouldn't admit it if we confronted them with it, but it's the kind of thing Mimbrates would do."
"So you've only got Nachak's word for it? How did this plan of yours come up?"
"Nachak said that if he were an Asturian, he wouldn't let anybody
take his land, but he said that it'd be too late to try to stop them
when they came with knights and soldiers. He said that if he were doing
it, he'd strike before they were ready and that he'd do it in such a way
that the Mimbrates wouldn't know who'd done it. That's when he
suggested the Tolnedran uniforms."