The juggler's lilting brogue was almost hypnotic in its charm and liquidity, and Garion found himself somehow caught up in the really quite commonplace narrative. He felt a peculiar disappointment as the gaudy little man broke off his story.
"I hope that me tale has brought ye some small entertainment an' enlightenment, good masters," Feldegast said ingratiatingly, his grass-stained hand held out suggestively. "I make me way in the world with me wits and me talents, givin' of them as free as the birds, but I'm grateful fer little tokens of appreciation, don't y' know."
"Pay him," Belgarath said shortly to Garion.
"What?"
"Give him some money."
Garion sighed and reached for the leather purse at his belt.
"May the Gods all smile down on ye, young master," Feldegast thanked Garion effusively for the few small coins which changed hands. Then he looked slyly at Vella. "Tell me, me girl," he said, "have ye ever heard the story of the milkmaid and the peddler? I must give ye fair warnin' that it's a naughty little story, and I'd be covered with shame to bring a blush to yer fair cheeks."
"I haven't blushed since I was fourteen," Vella said to him.
"Well then, why don't we go apart a ways, an' I'll see if I can't remedy that? I'm told that blushin' is good fer the complexion."
Vella laughed and followed him back out onto the lawn.
"Silk," Belgarath said brusquely, "I need that diversion -now."
"We don't really have anything put together yet," Silk objected.
"Make something up, then," The old man turned to Yarblek. " And I don't want you to leave Mal Zeth until I give you the word. I might need you here."
"What's the matter, Grandfather?" Garion asked.
"We have to leave here as quickly as possible."
Out on the lawn, Vella stood wide-eyed and with the palms of her hands pressed to her flaming cheeks.
"Ye'll have to admit that I warned ye, me girl," Feldegast chortled triumphantly. "Which is more than I can say about the deceitful way ye slipped yer dreadful brew into me craw." He looked at her admiringly. "I must say, though, that ye bloom like a red, red rose when ye blush like that, and yer a joy to behold in yer maidenlike confusion. Tell me, have ye by chance heard the one about the shepherdess and the knight-errant?"
Vella fled.
That afternoon, Silk, who normally avoided anything remotely resembling physical exertion, spent several hours in the leafy atrium in the center of the east wing, busily piling stones across the mouth of the tiny rivulet of fresh, sparkling water which fed the pool at the center of the little garden. Garion watched curiously from the window of his sitting room until he could stand it no longer. He went out into the atrium to confront the sweating little Drasnian. "Are you taking up landscaping as a hobby?" he asked.
"No," Silk replied, mopping his forehead, "just taking a little precaution, is all."
"Precaution against what?"
Silk held up one finger. "Wait," he said, gauging the level of the water rising behind his improvised dam. After a moment, the water began to spill over into the pool with a loud gurgling and splashing. "Noisy, isn't it?" he said proudly.
"Won't that make sleep in these surrounding rooms a little hard?" Garion asked.
"It's also going to make listening almost impossible," the little man said smugly. "As soon as it gets dark, why don't you and I and Sadi and Liselle gather here. We need to talk, and my cheerful little waterfall should cover what we say to each other."
"Why after dark?"
Silk slyly laid one finger alongside his long, pointed nose. "So that the night will hide our lips from those police who don't use their ears to listen with."
"That's clever," Garion said.
"Why, yes. I thought so myself." Then Silk made a sour face. "Actually, it was Liselle's idea," he confessed.
Garion smiled. "But she let you do the work."
Silk grunted. "She claimed that she didn't want to break any of her fingernails. I was going to refuse, but she threw her dimples at me, and I gave in."
"She uses those very well, doesn't she? They're more dangerous than your knives."
"Are you trying to be funny, Garion?"
"Would I do that, old friend?"
As the soft spring evening descended over Mal Zeth, Garion joined his three friends in the dim atrium beside Silk's splashing waterfall.
"Very nice work, Kheldar," Velvet complimented the little man.
"Oh, shut up."
"Why, Kheldar!"
"All right," Garion said, by way of calling the meeting to order, "what have we got that we can work with? Belgarath wants us out of Mal Zeth almost immediately."
"I've been following your advice, Belgarion," Sadi murmured, "and I've been concentrating my attention on Baron Vasca. He's a man of eminent corruption and he has his fingers in so many pies that he sometimes loses track of just who's bribing him at any given moment."
"Exactly what's he up to right now?" Garion asked.
"He's still trying to take over the Bureau of Military Procurement," Velvet reported. "That bureau is controlled by the General Staff, however. It's mostly composed of colonels, but there's a General Bregar serving as Bureau Chief. The colonels aren't too greedy, but Bregar has a large payroll. He has to spread quite a bit of money around among his fellow generals to keep Vasca in check."
Garion thought about that. "Aren't you bribing Vasca as well?" he asked Silk.
Silk nodded glumly. "The price is going up, though. The consortium of Melcene merchant barons is laying a lot of money in his path, trying to get him to restrict Yarblek and me to the west-coast."
"Can he raise any sort of force? Fighting men, I mean?"
"He has contacts with a fair number of robber chiefs," Sadi replied, "and they have some pretty rough and ready fellows working for them."
"Is there any band operating out of Mal Zeth right now?"
Sadi coughed rather delicately. "I just brought a string of wagons down from Camat," he admitted. "Agricultural products for the most part."
Garion gave him a hard look. "I thought I asked you not to do that anymore."
"The crop had already been harvested, Belgarion," the eunuch protested. "It doesn't make sense to just let it rot in the fields, does it?"
"That's sound business thinking, Garion," Silk interceded.