"I hunger for the opportunity to repay my debt," he said impudently.
"You're impossible." She laughed, then gestured to her porters, and they lifted her litter to their shoulders. "Good-bye, Silk," she said.
"Good-bye, Bethra," he replied with a deep bow.
"Absolutely disgusting," Durnik said in a voice strangled with outrage as the porters marched away with the litter. "Why is a woman like that even permitted to stay in the city?"
"Bethra?" Silk asked in surprise. "She's the most brilliant and fascinating woman in Tol Honeth. Men come from all over the world just for an hour or two with her."
"For a price, of course," Durnik said.
"Don't misunderstand her, Durnik," Silk told him. "Her conversation's probably more valuable than-" He coughed slightly with a quick glance at Aunt Pol.
"Really?" Durnik questioned in a voice heavy with sarcasm.
Silk laughed. "Durnik," he said, "I love you like a brother, but you're a terrible prude, do you know that?"
"Leave him alone, Silk," Aunt Pol said firmly. "I like him exactly the way he is."
"I'm only trying to improve him, Lady Polgara," Silk explained innocently.
"Barak's right about you, Prince Kheldar," she said. "You're a very bad man."
"It's all in the line of duty. I sacrifice my more delicate feelings for the sake of my country."
"Of course!"
"Surely you don't imagine that I enjoy that sort of thing?"
"Why don't we just let it drop?" she suggested.
Grinneg, Barak, and Mister Wolf returned to Grinneg's house not long after the others had arrived.
"Well?" Aunt Pol asked Wolf as the old man came into the room where they had been waiting.
"He went south," Wolf said.
"South? He didn't turn east toward Cthol Murgos?"
"No," Wolf said. "He's probably trying to avoid a meeting with Ctuchik's people. He'll look for a quiet place to slip across the border. Either that or he's headed for Nyissa. Perhaps he's made some arrangement with Salmissra. We'll have to follow him to find out."
"I met an old friend in the marketplace," Silk said from the chair in which he lounged. "She tells me that Asharak's been involved in the politics of succession. It appears that he's managed to buy the Grand Duke of Vordue. If the Vorduvians get the throne, Asharak's going to have Tolnedra in the palm of his hand."
Mister Wolf scratched thoughtfully at his beard. "We're going to have to do something about him sooner or later. He's beginning to make me just a little tired."
"We could stop over for a day or so," Aunt Pol suggested. "Attend to it once and for all."
"No," Wolf decided. "It's probably best not to do that sort of thing here in the city. The business is likely to be a bit noisy, and Tolnedrans get excited about things they can't understand. I'm sure he'll give us an opportunity later - in some less-populated place."
"Do we leave now, then?" Silk asked.
"Let's wait until early morning," Wolf told him. "We'll probably be followed, but if the streets are empty, it will make things a little more difficult for them."
"I'll talk to my cook, then," Grinneg said. "The least I can do is send you on your way with a good meal to help you face the road. Then, of course, there's still that barrel of ale to be dealt with."
Mister Wolf smiled broadly at that, then caught Aunt Pol's reproving frown. "It would only go flat, Pol," he explained. "Once it's broached, you have to drink it up fairly quickly. It would be a shame to waste it, wouldn't it?"
Chapter Eighteen
THEY LEFT GRINNEG'S HOUSE before dawn the next morning, dressed once more in their traveling clothes. They slipped quietly out a back gate and proceeded through those narrow alleys and back streets Silk always seemed able to find. The sky to the east was beginning to lighten when they reached the massive bronze gate on the south end of the island."How long until the gate opens?" Mister Wolf asked one of the legionnaires.
"Not much longer," the legionnaire told him. "Just as soon as we can see the far bank clearly."
Wolf grunted. He had grown quite mellow the evening before and he was obviously troubled by a headache this morning. He dismounted, went to one of the packhorses, and drank from a leather waterskin.
"That isn't going to help, you know," Aunt Pol told him a bit smugly. He chose not to answer.
"I think it's going to be a lovely day today," she said brightly, looking first at the sky and then at the men around her who slumped in their saddles in attitudes of miserable dejection.
"You're a cruel woman, Polgara," Barak said sadly.
"Did you talk to Grinneg about that ship?" Mister Wolf asked.
"I think so," Barak replied. "I seem to remember saying something about it."
"It's fairly important," Wolf said.
"What's this?" Aunt Pol asked.
"I thought it might not be a bad idea to have a ship waiting off the mouth of the River of the Woods," Wolf said. "If we have to go to Sthiss Tor, it would probably be better to sail there rather than wade through the swamps in northern Nyissa."
"That's a very good idea, actually," she approved. "I'm surprised it occurred to you - considering your condition last night."
"Do you suppose we could talk about something else?" he asked somewhat plaintively.
It grew imperceptibly lighter, and the command to open the gate came from the watchtower on the wall above. The legionnaires slipped the iron bar and swung the ponderous gate open. With Mandorallen at his side, Silk led them out through the thick portal and across the bridge that spanned the dark waters of the Nedrane.
By noon they were eight leagues south of Tol Honeth, and Mister Wolf had somewhat regained his composure, though his eyes still seemed a bit sensitive to the bright spring sunlight, and he winced now and then when a bird sang a bit too near.
"Riders coming up behind," Hettar said.
"How many?" Barak asked.
"Two."
"Ordinary travelers, perhaps," Aunt Pol said.
The two figures on horseback appeared from around a bend behind them and stopped. They spoke together for a moment or two and then came on, their bearing somewhat cautious. They were a peculiar pair. The man wore a green Tolnedran mantle, a garment not really suited for riding. His forehead was quite high, and his hair was carefully combed to conceal his encroaching baldness. He was very skinny, and his ears stuck out from the side of his head like flaps. His companion appeared to be a child dressed in a hooded traveling cloak and with a kerchief across her face to keep out the dust.