"I can imagine," Garion said dryly.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the amulet resting against his bare chest.
"My grandfather gave it to me last Erastide," Garion answered.
"Let me see." She held out her hand.
He leaned forward.
"Take it off so I can see it," she ordered.
"I'm not supposed to take it off," he told her. "Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol say I'm never supposed to take it off for any reason. I think there's a spell of some kind on it."
"What a strange idea," she remarked as she bent to examine the amulet. "They aren't really sorcerers, are they?"
"Mister Wolf is seven thousand years old," Garion said. "He knew the God Aldur. I've seen him make a tree grow from a small twig in a matter of minutes and set rocks on fire. Aunt Pol cured a blind woman with a single word, and she can turn herself into an owl."
"I don't believe in such things," Ce'Nedra told him. "I'm sure there's another explanation."
Garion shrugged and pulled on his linen shirt and brown tunic. He shook his head and raked his fingers through his still-damp hair.
"You're making an awful mess of it," she observed critically. "Here." She stood up and stepped behind him. "Let me do it." She put the comb to his hair and began pulling it through carefully. "You have nice hair for a man," she said.
"It's just hair," he said indifferently.
She combed in silence for a moment or two, then took his chin in her hand, turned his head and looked at him critically. She touched his hair at the sides a time or two until it was arranged to her satisfaction. "That's better," she decided.
"Thank you." He was a bit confused by the change in her.
She sat down again on the grass, clasped her arms around one knee and gazed at the sparkling pool. "Garion," she said finally.
"Yes?"
"What's it like to grow up as an ordinary person?"
He shrugged. "I've never been anything but an ordinary person," he told her, "so I wouldn't know what to compare it to."
"You know what I mean. Tell me about where you grew up - and what you did and all."
So he told her about Faldor's farm, about the kitchen and Durnik's smithy and Doroon and Rundorig and Zubrette.
"You're in love with Zubrette, aren't you?" She asked it almost accusingly.
"I thought I was, but so much has happened since we left the farm that sometimes I can't even remember what she looks like. I think I could do without being in love anyway. From what I've seen of it, it's pretty painful most of the time."
"You're impossible," she said, and then she smiled at him, her little face framed in the blazing mass of her sun-touched hair.
"Probably," he admitted. "All right, now you tell me what it's like to grow up as a very special person."
"I'm not that special."
"You're an Imperial Princess," he reminded her. "I'd call that pretty special."
"Oh, that," she said, and then giggled. "You know, sometimes since I joined you people, I almost forget that I'm an Imperial Princess."
"Almost," he said with a smile, "but not quite."
"No," she agreed, "not quite." She looked out across the pool again. "Most of the time being a princess is very boring. It's all ceremonies and formalities. You have to stand around most of the time listening to speeches or receiving state visitors. There are guards around all the time, but sometimes I sneak away so I can be by myself. It makes them furious." She giggled again, and then her gaze turned pensive. "Let me tell your fortune," she said, taking his hand.
"Can you tell fortunes?" Garion asked.
"It's only make-believe," she admitted. "My maids and I play at it sometimes. We all promise each other high-born husbands and many children." She turned his hand over and looked at it. The silvery mark on his palm was very plain now that the skin was clean. "Whatever is that?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"It's not a disease, is it?"
"No," he said. "It has always been there. I think it has something to do with my family. Aunt Pol doesn't like to have people see it for some reason, so she tries to keep it hidden."
"How could you hide something like that?"
"She finds things for me to do that keep my hands dirty most of the time."
"How strange," she said. "I have a birthmark too - right over my heart. Would you like to see it?" She took hold of the neck of her tunic.
"I'll take your word for it," Garion told her, blushing furiously.
She laughed a silvery, tinkling little laugh. "You're a strange boy, Garion. You're not at all like the other boys I've met."
"They were Tolnedrans probably," Garion pointed out. "I'm a Sendar - or at least that's the way I was raised - so there are bound to be differences."
"You sound as if you're not sure what you are."
"Silk says I'm not a Sendar," Garion said. "He says he isn't sure exactly what I am, and that's very odd. Silk can recognize anybody for what he is immediately. Your father thought I was a Rivan."
"Since the Lady Polgara's your Aunt and Belgarath's your Grandfather, you're probably a sorcerer," Ce'Nedra observed.
Garion laughed. "Me? That's silly. Besides, the sorcerers aren't a race - not like Chereks or Tolnedrans or Rivans. It's more like a profession, I think - sort of like being a lawyer or a merchant - only there aren't any new ones. The sorcerers are all thousands of years old. Mister Wolf says that maybe people have changed in some way so that they can't become sorcerers anymore."
Ce'Nedra had leaned back and was resting on her elbows, looking up at him. "Garion?"
"Yes?"
"Would you like to kiss me?"
Garion's heart started to pound.
Then Durnik's voice called to them from not far away, and for one flaming instant Garion hated his old friend.
Chapter Twenty
"MISTRESS POL SAYS THAT IT'S TIME for you to come back to the tents," Durnik told them when he reached the glade. There was a faint hint of amusement on his plain, dependable face, and he looked knowingly at the two of them.Garion blushed and then grew angry with himself for blushing. Ce'Nedra, however, showed no concern at all.
"Have the Dryads come yet?" she asked, getting to her feet and brushing the grass from the back of her tunic.