‘That white streak in her hair, of course.’
‘Exactly.’
He suddenly grinned at me. ‘Oh, you are a sly old fox, Belgarath,’ he said admiringly. ‘You want me to blanket Tol Honeth with imitation Polgaras, don’t you?’
‘For a start, yes. I want to jerk Chamdar back to Tol Honeth. I’ll let him run around here for a while, and then I’ll start expanding the ruse. I think I’ll be able to arrange for him to get word of Polgara-sightings about a dozen times a day - starting here in Tol Honeth.’
‘If Polgara really wants to stay out of sight, why doesn’t she just dye her hair?’
‘She’s tried that, and it doesn’t work. The dye won’t adhere to that white lock. It washes right out, and Polgara washes her hair at least once a day. Since I can’t make her look like every other woman, I’ll do it the other way around and make every dark-haired woman in the west look like her. Tol Honeth’s the fashion center of the western world, so if the ladies here start painting a white stripe in their hair, the ladies in the other kingdoms will follow suit in six months or so. I’ll pull Chamdar back to Tol Honeth for a start, and then I’ll circulate around in the other kingdoms and encourage all the ladies I come across to follow the new fashion. I’ll keep Chamdar running from the fringes of Morindland to the southern border of Nyissa for the next ten years with this little trick. To make things even worse, the Dagashi expect payment for each and every service. Chamdar’s going to pay very dearly for all those false reports. If nothing else, I’ll bankrupt him.’
I stayed in Tol Honeth for about a month while the new fashion caught on. I made no effort to conceal the fact that I was there, either. If Chamdar’s agents reported that I was there, the Polgara sightings would be far more credible. I sort of hate to admit that it was Olgon’s conversation with the evil-looking Strag that gave me the idea in the first place. I embellished it, though. I always embellish other people’s ideas. It’s called ‘artistry’ - or sometimes ‘plagiarism.’
It was at that point in my long and speckled career that I assumed a guise that’s worked out rather well for the past five hundred years. I became an itinerant story-teller. Story-tellers are welcome everywhere in a pre-literate society, and literacy wasn’t very widespread in those days.
People who’ve known me over the past five centuries have always assumed that my somewhat shabby appearance is the result of a careless indifference on my part, but nothing could be further from the truth. I spent a great deal of time designing that costume, and I had it made for me by one of the finest tailors in Tol Honeth. Those clothes look as if they’re right on the verge of falling off my back, but they’re so well-made that they’re virtually indestructible. The patches on the knees of my hose are purely cosmetic, since there aren’t any holes under them. The sleeves of my woolen tunic are frayed at the cuffs, but not from wear. The fraying was woven into the cloth of the tunic before I ever put it on. The rope belt is a touch of artistry, I’ve always thought, and the yoked hood gives me a distinctive and readily identifiable appearance. I added a stout grey Rivan cloak and a sack for my assorted belongings. Then I spent a full day arguing with a cobbler about the shoes. He absolutely could not understand why I didn’t want them to match. They’re very well-made shoes, actually, but they look as if I’d found them in a ditch somewhere. The entire costume made me look like a vagabond, and it hasn’t changed substantially for five centuries.
I left Tol Honeth on foot. A vagabond story-teller probably couldn’t afford a horse in the first place, and a horse is largely an encumbrance anyway, since I have other means of transportation available to me.
I wouldn’t have made such an issue of all that except to correct a widely-held misconception. Regardless of what people may think, I’m not really all that slovenly. My clothes look the way they do because I want them to.
Does it surprise you to discover that I’m not really a tramp? Life’s just filled with these little disappointments, isn’t it?
I stopped by Vo Mimbre on my way north, and I was quite surprised when Queen Mayaserana immediately fell in with my scheme. Sometimes we misjudge Arends. It’s easy to dismiss them as simply stupid, but that’s not entirely true. Their problem isn’t so much stupidity as it is enthusiasm. They’re an emotional people, and that clouds their judgment. The fiery Mayaserana saw the meaning of my ploy almost as quickly as Ran Borune had, and she’d added that white lock to her hair before the sun went down. It was very becoming, and the following day I was pleased to note that all the dark-haired ladies at court had rushed to follow suit. The blonde ladies did a lot of sulking, as I recall.
I discovered something about the female nature as I made my way north. No matter where I stopped, in whatever village or small town or isolated farmstead, sooner or later some woman was going to ask me, ‘What’s the current fashion at court? How long are the gowns? How are the ladies wearing their hair?’
Nothing could have suited my purposes better. I left a wake of white locks behind me like the wake of a Cherek war-boat with a good following wind.
I rather carefully avoided the families I’d been nurturing over the centuries. It occurred to me that Chamdar might just be shrewd enough to realize that he could seriously disrupt the course of what the Mrin had laid out for us if he managed to kill a few key ancestors. My primary concern, however, was still the safety of Gelane, so I avoided Seline as if it were infected with the pox.
As it turned out, though, the danger to Gelane wasn’t physical; it was spiritual instead.
I’d drifted into Medalia in central Sendaria, and I was telling stories for farthings in the town square and advising the ladies on the latest fashions. I was sleeping in a stable on the outskirts of town, and after I’d been in Medalia for about a week, Pol’s distressed voice woke me up in the middle of the night.
‘Father, I need you.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘We’ve got a problem. You’d better get here as soon as you can.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’ll tell you when you get here. Somebody might be eavesdropping. Wear a different face.’ Then her voice was gone.
Now there’s a cryptic message for you. Unless she loses her temper, Polgara’s probably the most unexcitable person in the world. Almost nothing upsets her, but she definitely sounded upset this time. I stood up, shook the straw out of my cloak and left Medalia immediately.
I was on the outskirts of Seline before the sun came up, and I mentally leafed through my catalogue of disguises and assumed the form of a bald-headed fat man. Then I went to the shop where Gelane spent his time building barrels.
Polgara was out front vigorously sweeping off the doorstep, despite the fact that it was still very early. ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded when I approached her. Somehow she always sees through my disguises.
‘Calm down, Pol. What’s got you so worked up?’
‘Come inside.’ She led me into the shop. ‘Gelane’s still asleep,’ she whispered. ‘I want to show you something.’ She led me to what appeared to be a broom-closet at the back of the shop. She opened the door and took out a shaggy fur tunic. My heart dropped into my shoes.
The tunic was made of bear-skin.
‘How long’s this been going on?’ I whispered to my daughter.
‘I can’t be entirely sure, father. Gelane’s been sort of distant and evasive for about the last six months. He goes out almost every night and doesn’t come back until quite late. At first I thought he might be cheating on Enalla.’
‘His wife?’
She nodded and carefully put the bear-skin tunic back in the broom-closet. ‘Let’s go outside,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want him to come down and find us in here.’
We went back out into the street and walked down to the corner. ‘Anyway,’ she took up her account, ‘Gelane’s mother’s been quite ill of late, so I’ve had to stay with her. She seems to be recovering now, and last evening I finally had a chance to follow him. He went down into the shop and stuck that tunic into a sack. Then he went on down to the lake-shore and followed the beach to a large grove of trees about a mile east of town. There were a dozen or so other Alorns standing around a fire in the center of the grove, and they were all dressed in bear-skins. Gelane put on that tunic, and he fit right in. It’s fairly obvious that he’s become a member of the Bear-Cult.’
I started to swear.
‘That’s not accomplishing anything, father.’ Pol told me crisply. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘I’m not sure. Who seemed to be in charge of that little get-together last night?’
‘There was a bearded man wearing the robe of a priest of Belar who did most of the talking.’
‘Did he say anything significant?’
‘Not really. Mostly he just repeated all those worn-out old slogans. “Aloria is one”, “Cursed be the children of the Dragon God”, “Belar rules” - that sort of thing.’
‘Pol, you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on Gelane. How did you let this happen?’