King of the Murgos

"I'm in disguise, cousin," Silk said blandly. "You're not supposed to be able to recognize me."

"Ah," Khaldon said. He turned to the Emperor. "Please excuse our banter, your Majesty. Kheldar here and I have loathed each other since childhood."

Silk grinned. "It was hate at first sight," he agreed. "We absolutely detest each other."

Khaldon smiled briefly. "When we were children, they used to hide all the knives every time our families visited each other."

Silk looked curiously at Liselle. "What are you doing in Tol Honeth?" he asked her.

"It's a secret."

"Velvet brought several dispatches from Boktor," Khaldon explained, "and certain instructions."

"Velvet?"

"Silly, isn't it?" Liselle laughed. "But then, I suppose they could have chosen a worse nickname for me."

"It's better than some that spring to mind," Silk agreed.

"Be nice, Kheldar."

"There was something you thought we ought to know, Prince Khaldon?" Varana asked.

Khaldon sighed. "It saddens me to report that the courtesan Bethra has been murdered, your Majesty."

"What? "

"She was set upon by assassins in a deserted street last night when she was returning from a business engagement. She was left for dead, but she managed to drag herself to our gate, and she was able to pass on some information before she died."

Silk's face had gone quite white. "Who was responsible for it?" he demanded.

"We're still working on that, Kheldar," his cousin replied. "We have some suspicions, of course, but nothing concrete enough to take before a magistrate."

The Emperor's face was bleak, and he rose from the chair in which he had been sitting. "There are some people who will need to know about this," he said grimly. "Would you come with me, Prince Khaldon?"

"Of course, your Majesty."

"Please excuse us," Varana said to the rest of them. "This is a matter that needs my immediate attention." He led the Drasnian Ambassador from the room.

"Did she suffer greatly?" Silk asked the girl known as Velvet in a voice filled with pain.

"They used knives, Kheldar," she replied simply. "That's never pleasant."

"I see." His ferret like face hardened. "Could she give you any kind of idea what might have been behind it?"

"I gather that it had to do with several things. She mentioned the fact that she once informed Emperor Varana of a plot against the life of his son."

"The Honeths!" Ce'Nedra grated.

"What makes you say that?" Silk asked quickly.

"Garion and I were here when she told Varana. It was at the time of my father's funeral. Bethra came secretly to the palace and said that two Honethite nobles—Count Elgon and Baron Kelbor—were hatching a scheme to murder Varana's son."

Silk's face was stony. "Thank you, Ce'Nedra," he said grimly.

"There's something else you should know, Kheldar," Velvet said quietly. She looked at the rest of them. "We all will be discreet about this, won't we?"

"Of course," Belgarath assured her.

Velvet turned back to Silk. "Bethra was Hunter," she told him.

"Hunter? Bethra?"

"She has been for several years now. When the struggle over the succession started heating up here in Tolnedra, King Rhodar instructed Javelin to take steps to make sure that the man who followed Ran Borune to the throne would be someone the Alorns could live with. Javelin came to Tol Honeth and recruited Bethra to see to it."

"Excuse me," Belgarath interrupted, his eyes alight with curiosity, "but exactly what is this 'Hunter'?"

"Our most secret spy," Velvet replied. "Hunter's identity is known only to Javelin, and Hunter deals with only the most sensitive situations—things that the Drasnian crown simply cannot openly become involved in. Anyway, when it appeared that the Grand Duke Noragon of the House of Honeth was almost certain to be the next Emperor, King Rhodar made a certain suggestion to Javelin, and a few months later, Noragon accidentally ate some bad shellfish— some very bad shellfish."

"Bethra did that?" Silk's tone was amazed.

"She was extraordinarily resourceful."

"Margravine Liselle?" Ce'Nedra said, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"Yes, your Majesty?"

"If the identity of Hunter is the deepest state secret in Drasnia, how is it that you were aware of it?"

"I was sent from Boktor with certain instructions for her. My uncle knows that I can be trusted."

"But you're revealing it now, aren't you?"

"It's after the fact, your Majesty. Bethra's dead. Someone else will be Hunter now. Anyway, before she died, Bethra told us that someone had found out about her involvement in the death of Grand Duke Noragon and had passed the information on. She believed that it was that information that triggered the attack on her."

"It's definitely narrowing down to the Honeths then, isn't it?" Silk said.

"It's not definite proof, Kheldar," Velvet warned him.

"It's definite enough to satisfy me."

"You're not going to do anything precipitous, are you?" she asked him. "Javelin wouldn't like that, you know."

"That's Javelin's problem."

"We don't have time to get involved in Tolnedran politics, Silk," Belgarath added firmly. "We're not going to be here that long."

"It's not going to take me all that long."

"I'll have to report what you're planning to Javelin," Velvet warned.

"Of course. But I'll be finished with it by the time your report reaches Boktor."

"It's important that you don't embarrass us, Kheldar."

"Trust me," he said and quietly left the room.

"It always makes me nervous when he says that," Durnik murmured.

Early the following morning, Belgarath and Garion left the Imperial Palace to visit the library at the university. It was chilly in the broad streets of Tol Honeth, and a raw wind was blowing in off the Nedrane River. The few merchants abroad at that hour walked briskly along the marble thoroughfares with fur cloaks pulled tightly about them, and gangs of roughly dressed laborers thronged up out of the poorer sections of the city with their heads bent into the wind and their chapped hands burrowed deep into their clothing.

Garion and his grandfather passed through the deserted central marketplace and soon reached a large cluster of buildings enclosed by a marble wall and entered through a gate stamped with the Imperial Seal. The grounds inside the compound were as neatly trimmed as those surrounding the palace, and there were broad marble walks stretching from building to building across the lawns. As they moved along one of those walks, they encountered a portly, black-robed scholar pacing along with his hands clasped behind his back and his face lost in thought.