"Moderately terrible, yes," he agreed, smiling.
"I told you once, dear, that you should never cry in public," Polgara said to her. "You just don't have the right coloring for it."
Ce'Nedra smiled tremulously and stood up. "Perhaps I should go wash my face," she said. "And then I think I'd like to lie down for a bit." She turned to Garion. "Thank you for coming," she said simply.
"Any time you need me," he replied.
"Why don't you go with the lady, Prala?" Lady Tamazin suggested.
"Of course," the slender Murgo Princess agreed, coming quickly to her feet.
Silk had been standing nervously near the door with the hood of his green robe pulled up and his head down to keep his face concealed.
"Oh, do stop that, Prince Kheldar," the Queen Mother told him after Ce'Nedra and Prala had left the room. "I recognized you last night, so it's no good your trying to hide your face."
He sighed and pushed his hood back. "I was afraid you might have," he said.
"That hood doesn't hide your most salient feature anyway," she told him.
"And which feature was that, my Lady?"
"Your nose, Kheldar, that long, sharp, pointed nose that precedes you wherever you go."
"But it's such a noble nose, my Lady," Velvet said with a dimpled smile. "He wouldn't be nearly the man he is without it."
"Do you mind?" Silk asked her.
"You do get around, don't you, Prince Kheldar?" Lady Tamazin said to him. "How long has it been since you left Rak Goska with half of the Murgo army hot on your heels?"
"Fifteen or twenty years, my Lady," he replied, coming closer to the fire.
"I was sorry to hear that you'd left," she said. "You're not a very prepossessing-looking fellow, but your conversation was most entertaining, and there was very little in the way of entertainment in the house of Taur Urgas."
"You don't plan to make a general announcement about my identity then, I take it?" he said carefully.
"It's not my concern, Kheldar." She shrugged. "Murgo women do not involve themselves in the affairs of men. Over the centuries, we've found that it's safer that way."
"You're not upset, then, my Lady?" Garion asked her. "What I mean is I'd heard that Prince Kheldar here accidentally killed the eldest son of Taur Urgas. Didn't that offend you just a little?"
"It had nothing to do with me," she replied. "The one Kheldar killed was the child of Taur Urgas' first wife—an insufferable, toothless hag of the House of Gorut who used to gloat over the fact that she had given birth to the heir apparent and that, as soon as he ascended the throne, she was going to have the rest of us strangled."
"I'm relieved to hear that you had no particular fondness for the young man," Silk told her.
"Fondness? He was a monster—just like his father. When he was just a little boy, he used to amuse himself by dropping live puppies into boiling water. The world's a better place without him."
Silk assumed a lofty expression. "I always like to perform these little public services," he declared. "I feel that it's a gentleman's civic duty."
"I thought you said that his death was accidental," Garion said.
"Well, sort of. Actually, I was trying to stab him in the belly—painful perhaps, but seldom fatal—but he bumped my arm as I made the thrust, and somehow my knife went straight into his heart."
"What a shame," Tamazin murmured. "I'd be sort of careful here in the Drojim though, Kheldar. I have no intention of revealing your identity, but the seneschal, Oskatat, also knows you by sight and he would probably feel obliged to denounce you."
"I'd already guessed as much, my Lady. I'll try to avoid him."
"Now tell me, Prince Kheldar, how is your father?"
Silk sighed. "He died, I'm afraid," he replied sadly, "quite a few years ago. It was rather sudden."
As chance had it, Garion was looking directly at the Queen Mother's face as Silk spoke and he saw the momentary flicker of anguish touch her beautiful features. She recovered quickly, though her eyes still brimmed with sorrow. "Ah," she said very quietly. "I'm sorry, Kheldar—more sorry than you could possibly know. I liked your father very much. The memories of the months he was in Rak Goska are among the happiest of my life."
To avoid being caught staring, Garion turned his head, and his eyes fell on Velvet, whose expression was faintly speculative. She returned his look, and her eyes conveyed a world of meaning and several unanswered questions.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The following morning dawned clear and cold. Garion stood at the window of his room, looking out over the slate roof tops of Rak Urga. The low, squat houses seemed to huddle together fearfully under the twin presence of the garish Drojim Palace at one end of town and the black Temple of Torak at the other. The smoke from hundreds of chimneys rose in straight blue columns toward the windless sky."Depressing sort of place, isn't it?" Silk said as he came into the room with his green robe carelessly slung over one shoulder.
Garion nodded. "It looks almost as if they deliberately went out of their way to make it ugly."
"It's a reflection of the Murgo mind. Oh, Urgit wants to see us again." The little man caught Garion's inquiring look. "I don't think it's anything particularly important," he added. "He's probably just starved for conversation. I imagine that talking with Murgos can get tedious after a while."
They all trooped through the garish halls on the heels of the mail-shirted guard who had brought the king's summons, returning to the room where they had met with Urgit the previous day. They found him lounging in a chair by the fire with one leg cocked up over the arm and a half-eaten chicken leg in his hand. "Good morning, gentlemen," he greeted them. "Please sit down." He waved his breakfast at the chairs lined against one wall. "I'm not much of a one for formality." He looked at Sadi. "Did you sleep well?" he asked.
"It got a bit cold on toward morning, your Majesty."
"It's the slipshod construction of this place. There are cracks in the walls big enough to push a horse through. In the wintertime we have snow storms in the corridors." He sighed. "Do you realize that it's spring in Tot Honeth right now?" He sighed again, then glanced at Belgarath, who stood smiling peculiarly at him. "Was there something amusing, old boy?"