He bowed, still blushing, and moved away.
"Men!" she said to his retreating back. Then she turned back to Garion. "I hear that you've been busy."
"I had to warn the king," he replied.
"You seem to have an absolute genius for getting mixed up in this sort of thing. Why didn't you tell me - or your grandfather."
"I promised that I wouldn't say anything."
"Garion," she said firmly, "under our present circumstances, secrets are very dangerous. You knew that what Lelldorin told you was important, didn't you?"
"I didn't say it was Lelldorin."
She gave him a withering look. "Garion, dear," she told him bluntly, "don't ever make the mistake of thinking that I'm stupid."
"I didn't," he floundered. "I wasn't. I - Aunt Pol, I gave them my word that I wouldn't tell anybody."
She sighed. "We've got to get you out of Arendia," she declared. "The place seems to be affecting your good sense. The next time you feel the urge to make one of these startling public announcements, talk it over with me first, all right?"
"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled, embarrassed.
"Oh, Garion, what am I ever going to do with you?" Then she laughed fondly and put her arm about his shoulder and everything was all right again.
The evening passed uneventfully after that. The banquet was tedious, and the toasts afterward interminable as each Arendish noble arose in turn to salute Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol with flowery and formal speeches. They went to bed late, and Garion slept fitfully, troubled by nightmares of the hot-eyed countess pursuing him through endless, flower-strewn corridors.
They were up early the next morning, and after breakfast Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf spoke privately with the king and queen again. Garion, still nervous about his encounter with the Countess Vasrana, stayed close to Mandorallen. The Mimbrate knight seemed best equipped to help him avoid any more such adventures. They waited in an antechamber to the throne room, and Mandorallen in his blue surcoat explained at length an intricate tapestry which covered one entire wall.
About midmorning Sir Andorig, the dark-haired knight Mister Wolf had ordered to spend his days caring for the tree in the plaza, came looking for Mandorallen. "Sir Knight," he said respectfully, "the Baron of Vo Ebor hath arrived from the north accompanied by his lady. They have asked after thee and besought me that I should seek thee out for them."
"Thou art most kind, Sir Andorig," Mandorallen replied, rising quickly from the bench where he had been sitting. "Thy courtesy becomes thee greatly."
Andorig sighed. "Alas that it was not always so. I have this past night stood vigil before that miraculous tree which Holy Belgarath commended to my care. I thus had leisure to consider my life in retrospect. I have not been an admirable man. Bitterly I repent my faults and will strive earnestly for amendment."
Wordlessly, Mandorallen clasped the knight's hand and then followed him down a long hallway to a room where the visitors waited.
It was not until they entered the sunlit room that Garion remembered that the wife of the Baron of Vo Ebor was the lady to whom Mandorallen had spoken on that windswept hill beside the Great West Road some days before.
The baron was a solid-looking man in a green surcoat, and his hair and beard were touched with white. His eyes were deep-set, and there seemed to be a great sadness in them. "Mandorallen," he said, warmly embracing the younger knight. "Thou art unkind to absent thyself from us for so long."
"Duty, my Lord," Mandorallen replied in a subdued voice. "Come, Nerina," the baron told his wife, "greet our friend."
The Baroness Nerina was much younger than her husband. Her hair was dark and very long. She wore a rose-colored gown, and she was beautiful-though, Garion thought, no more so than any of a half dozen others he had seen at the Arendish court.
"Dear Mandorallen," she said, kissing the knight with a brief, chaste embrace, "we have missed thee at Vo Ebor."
"And the world is desolate for me that I must be absent from its wellloved halls."
Sir Andorig had bowed and then discreetly departed, leaving Garion standing awkwardly near the door.
"And who is this likely-appearing lad who accompanies thee, my son?" the baron asked.
"A Sendarian boy," Mandorallen responded. "His name is Garion. He and diverse others have joined with me in a perilous quest."
"Joyfully I greet my son's companion," the baron declared.
Garion bowed, but his mind raced, attempting to find some legitimate excuse to leave. The situation was terribly embarrassing, and he did not want to stay.
"I must wait upon the king," the baron announced. "Custom and courtesy demand that I present myself to him as soon as possible upon my arrival at his court. Wilt thou, Mandorallen, remain here with my baroness until I return?"
"I will, my Lord."
"I'll take you to where the king is meeting with my aunt and my grandfather, sir," Garion offered quickly.
"Nay, lad," the baron demurred. "Thou too must remain. Though I have no cause for anxiety, knowing full well the fidelity of my wife and my dearest friend, idle tongues would make scandal were they left together unattended. Prudent folk leave no possible foundation for false rumor and vile innuendo."
"I'll stay then, sir," Garion replied quickly.
"Good lad," the baron approved. Then, with eyes that seemed somehow haunted, he quietly left the room.
"Wilt thou sit, my Lady?" Mandorallen asked Nerina, pointing to a sculptured bench near a window.
"I will," she said. "Our journey was fatiguing."
"It is a long way from Vo Ebor," Mandorallen agreed, sitting on another bench. "Didst thou and my Lord find the roads passable?"
"Perhaps not yet so dry as to make travel enjoyable," she told him. They spoke at some length about roads and weather, sitting not far from each other, but not so close that anyone chancing to pass by the open door could have mistaken their conversation for anything less than innocent. Their eyes, however, spoke more intimately. Garion, painfully embarrassed, stood looking out a window, carefully choosing one that kept him in full view of the door.
As the conversation progressed, there were increasingly long pauses, and Garion cringed inwardly at each agonizing silence, afraid that either Mandorallen or the Lady Nerina might in the extremity of their hopeless love cross that unspoken boundary and blurt the one word, phrase, or sentence which would cause restraint and honor to crumble and turn their lives into disaster. And yet a certain part of his mind wished that the word or phrase or sentence might be spoken and that their love could flame, however briefly.