After a little while mother came into the room with Aunt Pol’s book under her arm. She absently scratched Wolf’s ears, and Wolf’s golden eyes opened briefly, and he wagged his tail a couple of times in appreciation. Then his eyes closed again. Wolf had told Geran that he was quite fond of mother, but Wolf wasn’t very demonstrative, since he felt that it wasn’t dignified.
Mother climbed into bed, plumped up the pillows Geran had placed there for her use, and then tucked her feet under one corner of his down-filled bolster. ‘Are you warm enough?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, mother. Everything’s just bully.’
She opened the book on her lap. ‘Where were we?’ she asked.
‘Aunt Pol was looking for the crazy lady out in the snow,’ Geran replied. ‘At least that was what was happening when I fell asleep.’ Then a momentary apprehension came over him. ‘You didn’t go on without me, did you?’ he asked.
She laughed, ‘Geran dear, this is a book It doesn’t run off or disappear once if s been read. Oh, speaking of that, how are your lessons coming?’
He sighed. ‘All right – I guess. The book my tutor’s got me reading isn’t very interesting. It’s a history book. Why do I have to have a Tolnedran tutor, mother? Why can’t I have an Alorn one instead?’
‘Because Tolnedrans are better teachers than Alorns, dear.’ Mother did have opinions, Geran had noticed.
She leafed her way through the last third of Aunt Pol’s book. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘here we are.’
‘Before you start, mother, could I ask a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Aunt Pol can do magic, can’t she?’
‘She doesn’t really like that term, Geran, and neither does your grandfather.’
‘I won’t use it in front of them, then. If she can do magic things, why didn’t she just wiggle her fingers and make the crazy lady not crazy any more?’
‘I guess there are some things that magic can’t do.’
That was a terrible let-down for Prince Geran. He’d long felt that some training in magic might be very useful when he became king. The people in father’s government always seemed to be worrying about money, and if the king could just wave his hand and fill the room with it, they could all take the rest of the day off and go fishing, or something.
Mother took up the story of Aunt Pol’s search for the madwoman, Alara, and it seemed to Geran that he could almost see the frigid mountains and dark forests around the village of Annath as Aunt Pol continued her desperate search. He almost held his breath, hoping that the gloomy part he was sure was coming might be averted. It wasn’t, though.
‘I hate it when a story does that, he said.
“This isn’t exactly a story, Geran mother explained. ‘This really happened exactly the way Aunt Pol says it did.’
‘Are we going to get to any happy parts soon?’
‘Why don’t you stop asking questions and find out?’
That seemed totally uncalled for to Geran.
Mother continued to read, and after a few minutes, Geran raised his hand slightly, even as he would have in his classroom. ‘Could I ask just one question, mother?’
‘If you wish.’
‘How did grandfather know that Chamdar was burning down that house?’
‘Your grandfather knows all kinds of things, Geran – even things he’s not supposed to know. This time, though, I think that voice he carries around in his head told him about it.’
‘I wish I had a voice inside my head to tell me things. That might keep me out of a lot of trouble.’
‘Amen!’ mother agreed fervently. Then she went on with the story.
When she got to the part about Aunt Pol’s house on the shores of Lake Erat, Geran interrupted again without even thinking about it. ‘Have you ever been there, mother? – Aunt Pol’s house, I mean.’
‘A couple of times,’ mother replied.
‘Is it really as big as she says it is?’
‘Bigger, probably. Someday she might take you there and you’ll be able to see it for yourself.’
‘That’d be just bully, mother!’ he said excitedly.
‘What is it with this “bully” business?’
‘All the boys my age say that a lot. It sort of means “very, very nice”. It’s a real good word. Everybody uses it all the time.’
‘Oh, one of those. It’ll pass – eventually.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’ Then mother went back to her reading.
Prince Geran’s eyelids began to droop when the story got as far as Faldor’s farm. That part wasn’t really very exciting, and somewhere during that endless discussion of how to make a pot of stew, the Crown Prince of Riva drifted off to sleep.
The little boy’s regular breathing told Queen Ce’Nedra that she’d lost her audience. She slipped a scrap of paper between the pages of the book, and then she leaned back reflectively.
Aunt Pol’s book had filled in all the gaps Ce’Nedra had noticed in Belgarath’s book – and then some. The wealth of characters, many of them the towering figures of legend, quite nearly filled the Rivan Queen with awe. Riva Iron-grip was here, and Brand, the man who’d struck down a God. Beldaran, the most beautiful woman in history, was here. Asrana and Ontrose had nearly broken Ce’Nedra’s heart. Aunt Pol’s book had virtually erased the entire library of the History Department of the University of Tol Honeth and replaced it with what had really happened.
The staggering march of history was right here on the Rivan Queen’s lap. She opened it again and read the part she loved the most, that quiet little scene in the kitchen at Faldor’s farm when Polgara was no longer the Duchess of Erat, but merely the cook on a remote Sendarian farm. Rank meant absolutely nothing there, however. What really mattered was Polgara’s gentle, unspoken realization that in spite of all his flaws and his seeming desertion of her mother before she and Beldaran were born, Polgara really loved her vagabond father. The animosity she’d clung to for all those centuries had been rather gently evaporated.
That subterranean little game Aunt Pol and her father had played with each other for centuries had produced a surprise winner, a winner they hadn’t even realized was taking part in their game. They’d spent three thousand years nipping at each other in half-serious play, and for all that time, the wolf Poledra had watched them play, patiently waiting for them to squirm around into the exact position where she wanted them to be, and then she had pounced.