Trembling in every limb, she mounted the broken wall and looked at the faces before her. All her preparations, all the rehearsed phrases, evaporated from her mind, and she stood, white-faced and shaking, without the faintest idea of how to begin. The silence was dreadful.
As chance had it, one of the young Asturians in the very front had tasted perhaps more wine that morning than was good for him. "I think her Majesty has forgotten her speech," he snickered loudly to one of his companions.
Ce'Nedra's reaction was instantaneous. "And I think the gentleman has forgotten his manners," she flared, not even stopping to think. Incivility infuriated her.
"I don't think I'm going to listen to this," the tipsy young man declared in a tone filled with exaggerated boredom. "It's just a waste of time. I'm not a Rivan and neither are any of the rest of you. What could a foreign queen possibly say that would be of any interest to Asturian patriots?" And he started to turn away.
"Is the patriotic Asturian gentleman so wine-soaked that he's forgotten that there's more to the world than this forest?" Ce'Nedra retorted hotly. "Or perhaps he's so unschooled that he doesn't know what's happening out there." She leveled a threatening finger at him. "Hear me, patriot," she said in a ringing voice. "You may think that I'm just here to make some pretty little speech, but what I've come to say to you is the most important thing you'll ever hear. You can listen, or you can turn your back and walk away-and a year from now when there is no Asturia and when your homes are smoking in ruins and the Grolims are herding your families to the altar of Torak with its fire and its bloody knives, you can look back on this day and curse yourself for not listening."
And then as if her anger with this one rude young man had suddenly burst a dam within her, Ce'Nedra began to speak. She spoke to them directly, not with the studied phrases she had rehearsed, but with words that came from her heart. The longer she spoke, the more impassioned she became. She pleaded; she cajoled - and finally she commanded. She would never remember exactly what she said, but she would never forget how she felt as she said it. All the passion and fire that had filled the stormy outbursts and tantrums of her girlhood came into full play. She spoke fervently with no thought of herself, but rather with an allconsuming belief in what she said. In the end she won them over.
As the sun fell full upon her, her armor gleamed and her hair seemed to leap into flame. "Belgarion, King of Riva and Overlord of the West, calls you to war!" she declared to them. "I am Ce'Nedra, his queen, and I stand before you as a living banner. Who among you will answer Belgarion's call and follow me?"
It was the young man who had laughed at her whose sword leaped first into his hand. Raising it in salute, he shouted, "I will follow!" As if his declaration were a signal, half a hundred swords flashed in the sunlight as they were raised in salute and pledge, and half a hundred voices echoed his shout. "I will follow!"
With a broad sweep of her arm, Ce'Nedra drew her own sword and lifted it. "Follow, then!" she sang to them. "We ride to meet the fell hordes of Angarak. Let the world tremble at our coming!" With three quick steps, she reached her horse and literally threw herself into the saddle. She wheeled her prancing mount and galloped from the ruins, her sword aloft and her flaming hair streaming. The Asturians as one man rushed to their horses to follow.
As she plunged into the forest, the princess glanced back once at the brave, foolish young men galloping behind her, their faces exalted. She had won, but how many of these unthinking Asturians would she lead back when the war was done? How many would die in the wastes of the East? Her eyes suddenly filled with tears; but, dashing those tears away with one hand, the Rivan Queen galloped on, leading the Asturians back to join her army.
Chapter Twenty-six
THE ALORN KINGS praised Ce'Nedra extravagantly, and hard-bitten warriors looked at her with open admiration. She lapped up their adulation and purred like a happy kitten. The only thing that kept her triumph from being complete was Polgara's strange silence. Ce'Nedra was a little hurt by that. The speech had not been perfect, perhaps, but it had won Lelldorin's friends completely, and surely success made up for any minor flaws.Then, when Polgara sent for her that evening, Ce'Nedra thought she understood. The sorceress wished to congratulate her in private. Humming happily to herself, the princess went along the beach to Polgara's tent with the sound of waves on the white sand in her ears.
Polgara sat at her dressing table, alone except for the sleepy child, Errand. The candlelight played softly over her deep blue robe and the perfection of her features as she brushed her long, dark hair. "Come in, Ce'Nedra," she said. "Sit down. We have a great deal to discuss."
"Were you surprised, Lady Polgara?" The princess could no longer contain herself. "You were, weren't you? I even surprised myself."
Polgara looked at her gravely. "You mustn't allow yourself to become so excited, Ce'Nedra. You have to learn to conserve your strength and not squander it by dashing about in hysterical self congratulation."
Ce'Nedra stared at her. "Don't you think I did well today?" she asked, hurt to the quick.
"It was a very nice speech, Ce'Nedra," Polgara told her in a way that took all the fun out of it.
A strange thought occurred to the princess then. "You knew, didn't you?" she blurted. "You knew all along."
A faint flicker of amusement touched Polgara's lips. "You always seem to forget that I have certain advantages, dear," she replied, "and one of those is that I have a general idea of how things are going to turn out."
"How could you possibly-"
"Certain events don't just happen, Ce'Nedra. Some things have been implicit in this world since the moment it was made. What happened today was one of those things." She reached over and picked up an age darkened scroll from the table. "Would you like to hear what the Prophecy says about you?"
Ce'Nedra felt a sudden chill.
Polgara ran her eyes down the crackling parchment. "Here it is," she said, lifting the scroll into the candlelight. " 'And the voice of the Bride of Light shall be heard in the kingdoms of the world,' " she read, " 'and her words shall be as a fire in dry grass, that the multitudes shall rise up to go forth under the blaze of her banner."'
"That doesn't mean anything at all, Lady Polgara," Ce'Nedra objected. "It's absolute gibberish."
"Does it become any clearer when you find out that Garion is the Child of Light?"