‘Probably because the firewood here is too wet to make burning people at the stake practical,’ the owner of the cottage added with a certain bitterness. ‘Come in out of the rain, both of you.’ The witch of the fens was a very old woman, but there were still traces of what must have been a luminous beauty in her face - marred, I’ll admit, by the bitter twist to her lips. Life hadn’t been good to Vordai the witch.
No one who’s spent any time in Drasnia hasn’t heard of the witch of the fens, but I’d always assumed that the stories I’d heard were no more than fairy-tales, and most of them probably were. She was most definitely not a hag, for one thing, and I’m fairly sure that she didn’t go out of her way to lure unwary travelers into quicksand bogs, for another. Certain events in her past had made her absolutely indifferent to other humans.
The interior of her cottage was scrupulously neat. The ceiling was low and heavily beamed, and the wooden floor had been scrubbed until it was white. There was a pot hanging in her fireplace, there were wildflowers in a vase on her table, and curtains at the window.
Vordai wore a plain brown dress, and she limped slightly. She looked worn and tired. ‘So this is the famous Belgarath,’ she said, taking our wet cloaks and hanging them on pegs near her fire.
‘Disappointing, isn’t he?’ Pol said.
‘No,’ Vordai replied, ‘not really. He’s about what I’d have expected.’ She gestured toward her table. ‘Seat yourselves. I think there’s enough in the pot for us all.’
‘You knew that we were coming, didn’t you, Vordai?’ Pol suggested.
‘Naturally. I am a witch, after all.’
A fenling came in through the open door and stood up on its short hind legs. It made that peculiar chittering sound that fenlings all make.
‘Yes,’ Vordai said to the little creature, ‘I know.’
‘It’s true, then,’ Pol said cryptically, eyeing the fenling.
‘Many unusual things are true, Polgara,’ Vordai replied.
‘You shouldn’t really have tampered with them, you know.’
‘I didn’t hurt them, and I’ve found that tampering with humans can be very dangerous. All in all, I much prefer the company of fenlings to that of my fellow man.’
‘They’re cleaner, if nothing else,’ Pol agreed.
‘That’s because they bathe more often. The rain should let up soon, and you and your father will be able to continue your journey. In the meantime, I’ll offer breakfast. That’s about as far as I’d care to stretch my hospitality.’
There were a lot of things going on that I didn’t completely understand. Evidently, Polgara’s studies had taken her into an examination of witchcraft, an area I’d neglected, and there were things passing back and forth between Pol and the witch of the fens that were incomprehensible to me. The one thing that I did perceive, however, was the fact that this lonely old woman had been treated very badly at some time in the past.
All right, Garion, don’t beat it into the ground. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did feel sorry for Vordai - almost as sorry as I’d felt for Illessa. I’m not a monster, after all. Why do you think I did what I did when you and Silk and I passed through the fens on our way to Cthol Mishrak? It certainly wasn’t because I couldn’t think of any alternatives.
As Vordai had suggested it might, the sky cleared along about noon, and Pol and I put on our now-dry cloaks and went back to our boat.
Vordai didn’t even bother to see us off.
I poled the boat around another bend in that twisting channel we’d been following, and as soon as we were out of sight of that lonely cottage there in the middle of that vast swamp, Pol’s eyes filled with tears. I didn’t really think it would have been appropriate for me to ask her why. When the occasion demands it, Pol can be absolutely ruthless, but she’s not inhuman.
We came out of the fens near Aldurford and continued on foot along the eastern border of Sendaria until we reached the rutted track that led to Annath. It was mid-afternoon when we crossed the frontier, and Geran was waiting for us near the stone-quarry on the outskirts of town when we finally arrived. ‘Thank the Gods!’ he said fervently. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t make it back in time for the wedding!’
‘What wedding?’ Pol asked sharply
‘Mine,’ Geran replied. ‘I’m getting married next week.’
Chapter 49
The wedding of Geran and Ildera took place in the late spring of the year 5348, and the entire village of Annath took the day off work to attend. Not to be outdone, Ildera’s leather-clad clansmen also came across the border to participate.
There’d been a certain amount of squabbling about who was going to officiate at the ceremony. Since Ildera was an Algar, the priest of Belar who attended to the spiritual needs of her clan assumed that he should be the one to conduct the ceremony, but the local Sendarian priest had objected strenuously. Polgara had stepped in at that point and smoothed things over - on the surface, at least - by suggesting the simple expedient of having two ceremonies instead of one. It didn’t matter to me one way or the other, so I kept my nose out of it.
Some frictions had arisen between Geran’s mother, Alara, and Ildera’s mother, Olane. Ildera’s father, Grettan, was a clan-chief, after all, and that’s about as close as you’re going to get to nobility in Algar society. Geran, on the other hand, was the son of an ordinary stone-cutter, so Olane didn’t make any secret of the fact that she felt that her daughter was marrying beneath her. That didn’t set at all well with Alara, and Pol had been obliged to speak with her firmly to prevent her from blurting out some things about her son’s heritage that others didn’t need to know about. These periodic outbreaks of animosity between mothers have caused Pol more concern over the centuries than Chamdar himself, I think.
Country weddings are normally rather informal affairs. The bridegroom usually takes a bath, and most of the time he’ll put on a clean shirt, but that’s about as far as it goes. Olane’s superior attitude in this situation, however, had moved Anara to tear the village of Annath apart in search of finery in which to dress her son. Quite by chance she discovered that the local cobbler had a dust-covered old purple doublet hanging in his attic, and she’d badgered the poor man unmercifully until he’d finally agreed to lend it to Geran. She’d washed it and almost forcibly compelled my grandson to put it on for the happy occasion.
It didn’t fit him very well, though, and he kept reaching up under it trying to adjust it. ‘Just leave it alone, Geran,’ his father told him while the three of us were waiting for the ceremony to begin. ‘You’ll rip it.’
‘I don’t see why I have to wear this silly thing anyway, father,’ Geran complained. ‘I’ve got a perfectly good tunic.’
‘Your mother wants you to look a bit more dressed-up in front of the Algars,’ Darral told him. ‘Let’s not go out of our way to disappoint her. She’s having a little problem right now, so let’s humor her. Do it as a favor to your poor old father, Geran. You might be eating in your own kitchen from now on, but I still have to eat what your mother prepares. Just wear the doublet, boy. You can endure it for a few hours, and it’ll make my life a lot easier.’
Geran grumbled a bit and then went back to that nervous pacing that all bridegrooms seem to find entertaining.
Since the weather was fine and there were a lot of guests in attendance, the wedding took place in a pleasant flower-strewn meadow on the outskirts of Annath. When the time came, Darral and I escorted our nervous bridegroom to the altar that’d been erected in the center of the field and where the two priests who were to officiate stood glowering at each other. I could see from their expressions that Pol’s suggestion hadn’t quite ironed out all the wrinkles.
The immediate families of the bride and groom were seated on benches just in front of the altar while the rest of the guests stood. The Sendars were all dressed in sober, serviceable brown, and they stood on one side. The Algars wore black horsehide and they stood on the other. There were some hard looks being exchanged, I noticed. The hostility between Olane and Alara had obviously polarized the wedding guests into two opposing camps.
Most of the residents of Annath were stone-cutters by trade, so there weren’t any competent musicians among the Sendarian contingent; and Algars are so unmusical that most of them couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Pol had considered this and had wisely decided to forego the traditional bridal march. There was enough trouble in the wind already. Some chance remark by a budding music-critic might well have set off the fights even before the ceremony.
Ildera was escorted to the altar by her father, Grettan, whose expression indicated that he was devoutly wishing that this day would end. The bride, dressed all in white and with a garland of spring flowers encircling her pale, blonde head, was radiant. Brides always are - or had you noticed that? Brides are radiant, and bridegrooms are nervous. Does that suggest to you who really runs the world?
Polgara - dressed in blue, naturally - came immediately behind Ildera and Grettan. Though this was supposed to be a happy event, Polgara’s face was stern. There was an enormous potential for violence in the air, and Pol wanted everybody to understand that she’d brook no nonsense here.