He looked a bit perplexed. "I don't quite follow."
"I'm an Imperial Princess, the jewel of the Empire, and I belong to the Empire. I'll have absolutely no voice in the decision about whom I'm going to marry. That decision will be made by my father and the Cauncil of Advisers. My husband will be rich and powerful - probably much older than I am - and my marriage to him will be to the advantage of the Empire and the House of Borune. I probably won't even be consulted in the matter."
Durnik looked stunned. "That's outrageous!" he objected.
"Not really," she told him. "My family has the right to protect its interests, and I'm an extremely valuable asset to the Borunes." She sighed again, a forlorn little sigh. "It might be nice, though - to be able to choose for myself, I mean. If I could, I might even look at Garion the way you seem to think I have been looking - even though he's absolutely impossible. The way things are, though, all he can ever be is a friend."
"I didn't know," he apologized, his plain, practical face melancholy.
"Don't take it so seriously, Durnik," she said lightly. "I've always known that this was the way things have to be."
A large, glistening tear, however, welled into the corner of her eye, and Durnik awkwardly put his work-worn hand on her arm to comfort her. Without knowing why, she threw her arms around his neck, buried her face in his chest, and sobbed.
"There, there," he said, clumsily patting her shaking shoulder. "There, there."
Chapter Three
GARION DID NOT Sleep well that night. Although he was young and inexperienced, he was not stupid, and Princess Ce'Nedra had been fairly obvious. Over the months since she had joined them, he had seen her attitude toward him change until they had shared a rather specialized kind of friendship. He liked her; she liked him. Everything had been fine up to that point. Why couldn't she just leave it alone? Garion surmised that it probably had something to do with the inner workings of the female mind. As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.He was almost certain that her transparent little game with Mandorallen had been aimed at him, and he wondered if it might not be a good idea to warn the knight to spare him more heartbreak in the future. Ce'Nedra's toying with the great man's affections was little more than the senseless cruelty of a spoiled child. Mandorallen must be warned. His Arendish thick-headedness might easily cause him to overlook the obvious.
And yet, Mandorallen had killed the lion for her. Such stupendous bravery could quite easily have overwhelmed the flighty little princess. What if her admiration and gratitude had pushed her over the line into infatuation? That possibility, coming to Garion as it did in those darkest hours just before dawn, banished all possibility of further sleep. He arose the next morning sandy-eyed and surly and with a terrible worry gnawing at him.
As they rode out through the blue-tinged shadows of early morning with the slanting rays of the newly risen sun gleaming on the treetops above them, Garion fell in beside his grandfather, seeking the comfort of the old man's companionship. It was not only that, however. Ce'Nedra was riding demurely with Aunt Pol just ahead, and Garion felt very strongly that he should keep an eye on her.
Mister Wolf rode in silence, looking cross and irritable, and he frequently dug his fingers under the splint on his left arm.
"Leave it alone, father," Aunt Pol told him without turning around.
"It itches."
"That's because it's healing. Just leave it alone."
He grumbled about that under his breath.
"Which route are you planning to take to the Vale?" she asked him.
"We'll go around by way of Tol Rane," he replied.
"The season's moving on, father," she reminded him. "If we take too long, we'll run into bad weather in the mountains."
"I know that, Pol. Would you rather cut straight across Maragor?"
"Don't be absurd."
"Is Maragor really all that dangerous?" Garion asked.
Princess Ce'Nedra turned in her saddle and gave him a withering look. "Don't you know anything?" she asked him with towering superiority.
Garion drew himself up, a dozen suitable responses to that coming to mind almost at once.
Mister Wolf shook his head warningly. "Just let it pass," the old man told him. "It's much too early to start in on that just now."
Garion clenched his teeth together.
They rode for an hour or more through the cool morning, and Garion gradually felt his temper improving. Then Hettar rode up to speak with Mister Wolf. "There are some riders coming," he reported.
"How many?" Wolf asked quickly.
"A dozen or more - coming in from the west."
"They could be Tolnedrans."
"I'll see," Aunt Pol murmured. She lifted her face and closed her eyes for a moment. "No," she said. "Not Tolnedrans. Murgos."
Hettar's eyes went flat. "Do we fight?" he asked with a dreadful kind of eagerness, his hand going to his sabre.
"No," Wolf replied curtly. "We hide."
"There aren't really that many of them."
"Never mind, Hettar," Wolf told him. "Silk," he called ahead, "there are some Murgos coming toward us from the west. Warn the others and find us all a place to hide."
Silk nodded curtly and galloped forward.
"Are there any Grolims with them?" the old man asked Aunt Pol.
"I don't think so," she answered with a small frown. "One of them has a strange mind, but he doesn't seem to be a Grolim."
Silk rode back quickly. "There's a thicket off to the right," he told them. "It's big enough to hide in."
"Lets go, then," Wolf said.
The thicket was fifty yards back among the larger trees. It appeared to be a patch of dense brush surrounding a small hollow. The ground in the hollow was marshy, and there was a spring at its center.
Silk had swung down from his horse and was hacking a thick bush off close to the ground with his short sword. "Take cover in here," he told them. "I'll go back and brush out our tracks." He picked up the bush and wormed his way out of the thicket.
"Be sure the horses don't make any noise," Wolf told Hettar. Hettar nodded, but his eyes showed his disappointment.
Garion dropped to his knees and wormed his way through the thick brush until he reached the edge of the thicket; then he sank down on the leaves covering the ground to peer out between the gnarled and stumpy trunks.