Chapter Sixteen
THE NEXT DAY Garion was too stiff and sore to even think about getting out of bed. A stream of visitors, however, kept him too occupied to think about his aches and pains. The visits from the Alorn Kings in their splendid robes were particularly flattering, and each of them praised his courage. Then the queens came and made a great fuss over his injuries, offering warm sympathy and gentle, stroking touches to his forehead. The combination of praise, sympathy and the certain knowledge that he was the absolute center of attention was overwhelming, and his heart was full.The last visitor of the day, however, was Mister Wolf, who came when evening was creeping through the snowy streets of Val Alorn. The old man wore his usual tunic and cloak, and his hood was turned up as if he had been outside.
"Have you seen my boar, Mister Wolf?" Garion asked proudly.
"An excellent animal," Wolf said, though without much enthusiasm, "but didn't anyone tell you it's customary to jump out of the way after the boar has been speared?"
"I didn't really think about it," Garion admitted, "but wouldn't that seem - well - cowardly?"
"Were you that concerned about what a pig might think of you?"
"Well," Garion faltered, "not really, I guess."
"You're developing an amazing lack of good sense for one so young," Wolf observed. "It normally takes years and years to reach the point you seem to have arrived at overnight." He turned to Aant Pol, who sat nearby. "Polgara, are you quite certain that there's no hint of Arendish blood in our Garion's background? He's been behaving most Arendish lately. First he rides the Great Maelstrom like a rocking horse, and then he tries to break a wild boar's tusks with his ribs. Are you sure you didn't drop him on his head when he was a baby?"
Aunt Pol smiled, but said nothing.
"I hope you recover soon, boy," Wolf said, "and try to give some thought to what I've said."
Garion sulked, mortally offended by Mister Wolf's words. Tears welled up in his eyes despite all his efforts to control them.
"Thank you for stopping by, Father," Aunt Pol said.
"It's always a pleasure to call on you, my daughter," Wolf said and quietly left the room.
"Why did he have to talk to me like that?" Garion burst out, wiping his nose. "Now he's gone and spoiled it all."
"Spoiled what, dear?" Aunt Pol asked, smoothing the front of her gray dress.
"All of it," Garion complained. "The kings all said I was very brave."
"Kings say things like that," Aunt Pol said. "I wouldn't pay too much attention, if I were you."
"I was brave, wasn't I?"
"I'm sure you were, dear," she said. "And I'm sure the pig was very impressed."
"You're as bad as Mister Wolf is," Garion accused.
"Yes, dear," she said, "I suppose I probably am, but that's only natural. Now, what would you like for supper?"
"I'm not hungry," Garion said defiantly.
"Really? You probably need a tonic then. I'll fix you one."
"I think I've changed my mind," Garion said quickly.
"I rather thought you might," Aunt Pol said. And then, without explanation, she suddenly put her arms around him and held him close to her for a long time. "What am I going to do with you?" she said finally.
"I'm all right, Aunt Pol," he assured her.
"This time perhaps," she said, taking his face between her hands. "It's a splendid thing to be brave, my Garion, but try once in a while to think a little bit first. Promise me."
"All right, Aunt Pol," he said, a little embarrassed by all this. Oddly enough she still acted as if she really cared about him. The idea that there could still be a bond between them even if they were not related began to dawn on him. It could never be the same, of course, but at least it was something. He began to feel a little better about the whole thing.
The next day he was able to get up. His muscles still ached a bit, and his ribs were somewhat tender, but he was young and was healing fast. About midmorning he was sitting with Durnik in the great hall of Anheg's palace when the silvery-bearded Earl of Seline approached them.
"King Fulrach wonders if you would be so kind as to join us in the council chamber, Goodman Durnik," he said politely.
"Me, your Honor?" Durnik asked incredulously.
"His Majesty is most impressed with your sensibility," the old gentleman said. "He feels that you represent the very best of Sendarian practicality. What we face involves all men, not just the Kings of the West, and so it's only proper that good, solid common sense be represented in our proceedings."
"I'll come at once, your Honor," Durnik said, getting up quickly, "but you'll have to forgive me if I say very little."
Garion waited expectantly.
"We've all heard of your adventure, my boy," the Earl of Seline said pleasantly to Garion. "Ah, to be young again," he sighed. "Coming, Durnik?"
"Immediately, your Honor," Durnik said, and the two of them made their way out of the great hall toward the council chamber.
Garion sat alone, wounded to the quick by his exclusian. He was at an age where his self esteem was very tender, and inwardly he writhed at the lack of regard implicit in his not being invited to join them. Hurt and offended, he sulkily left the great hall and went to visit his boar which hung in an ice-filled cooling room just oti the kitchen. At least the boar had taken him seriously.
One could, however, spend only so much time in the company of a dead pig without becoming depressed. The boar did not seem nearly so big as he had when he was alive and charging, and the tusks were impressive but neither so long nor so sharp as Garion remembered them. Besides, it was cold in the cooling room and sore muscles stiffened quickly in chilly places.
There was no point in trying to visit Barak. The red-bearded man had locked himself in his chamber to brood in blackest melancholy and refused to answer his door, even to his wife. And so Garion, left entirely on his own, moped about for a while and then decided that he might as well explore this vast palace with its dusty, unused chambers and dark, twisting corridors. He walked for what seemed hours, opening doors and following hallways that sometimes ended abruptly against blank stone walls.
The palace of Anheg was enormous, having been, as Barak had explained, some three thousand years and more in construction. One southern wing was so totally abandoned that its entire roof had fallen in centuries ago. Garion wandered there for a time in the second-floor corridors of the ruin, his mind filled with gloomy thoughts of mortality and transient glory as he looked into rooms where snow lay thickly on ancient beds and stools and the tiny tracks of mice and squirrels ran everywhere. And then he came to an unroofed corridor where there were other tracks, those of a man. The footprints were quite fresh, for there was no sign of snow in them and it had snowed heavily the night before. At first he thought the tracks might be his own and that he had somehow circled and come back to a corridor he had already explored, but the footprints were much larger than his.