"He's no bother, Mistress Pol," Durnik said, smiling. "He's a sensible boy and knows enough to keep out of the way."
"You're too good-natured, friend Durnik," Aunt Pol said. "The boy is full of questions. Answer one and a dozen more pour out."
"That's the way of boys," Durnik said, carefully pouring bubbling metal into the small clay ring he'd placed around the tiny hole in the bottom of the kettle. "I was questionsome myself when I was a boy. My father and old Barl, the smith who taught me, were patient enough to answer what they could. I'd repay them poorly if I didn't have the same patience with Garion."
Garion, who was sitting nearby, had held his breath during this conversation. He knew that one wrong word on either side would have instantly banished him from the smithy. As Aunt Pol walked back across the hard-packed dirt of the yard toward her kitchen with the new-mended kettle, he noticed the way that Durnik watched her, and an idea began to form in his mind. It was a simple idea, and the beauty of it was that it provided something for everyone.
"Aunt Pol," he said that night, wincing as she washed one of his ears with a rough cloth.
"Yes?" she said, turning her attention to his neck.
"Why don't you marry Durnik?"
She stopped washing. "What?" she asked.
"I think it would be an awfully good idea."
"Oh, do you?" Her voice had a slight edge to it, and Garion knew he was on dangerous ground.
"He likes you," he said defensively.
"And I suppose you've already discussed this with him?"
"No," he said. "I thought I'd talk to you about it first."
"At least that was a good idea."
"I can tell him about it tomorrow morning, if you'd like."
His head was turned around quite firmly by one ear. Aunt Pol, Garion felt, found his ears far too convenient.
"Don't you so much as breathe one word of this nonsense to Durnik or anyone else," she said, her dark eyes burning into his with a fire he had never seen there before.
"It was only a thought," he said quickly.
"A very bad one. From now on leave thinking to grown-ups." She was still holding his ear.
"Anything you say," he agreed hastily.
Later that night, however, when they lay in their beds in the quiet darkness, he approached the problem obliquely.
"Aunt Pol?"
"Yes?"
"Since you don't want to marry Durnik, whom do you want to marry?"
"Garion," she said.
"Yes?"
"Close your mouth and go to sleep."
"I think I've got a right to know," he said in an injured tone.
"Garion!"
"All right. I'm going to sleep, but I don't think you're being very fair about all this."
She drew in a deep breath. "Very well," she said. "I'm not thinking of getting married. I have never thought of getting married and I seriously doubt that I'll ever think of getting married. I have far too many important things to attend to for any of that."
"Don't worry, Aunt Pol," he said, wanting to put her mind at ease. "When I grow up, I'll marry you."
She laughed then, a deep, rich laugh, and reached out to touch his face in the darkness. "Oh no, my Garion," she said. "There's another wife in store for you."
"Who?" he demanded.
"You'll find out," she said mysteriously. "Now go to sleep."
"Aunt Pol?"
"Yes?"
"Where's my mother?" It was a question he had been meaning to ask for quite some time.
There was a long pause, then Aunt Pol sighed.
"She died," she said quietly.
Garion felt a sudden wrenching surge of grief, an unbearable anguish. He began to cry.
And then she was beside his bed. She knelt on the floor and put her arms around him. Finally, a long time later, after she had carried him to her own bed and held him close until his grief had run its course, Garion asked brokenly, "What was she like? My mother?"
"She was fair-haired," Aunt Pol said, "and very strong and very beautiful. Her voice was gentle, and she was very happy."
"Did she love me?"
"More than you could imagine."
And then he cried again, but his crying was quieter now, more regretful than anguished.
Aunt Pol held him closely until he cried himself to sleep.
There were other children on Faldor's farm, as was only natural in a community of sixty or so. The older ones on the farm all worked, but there were three other children of about Garion's age on the freeholding. These three became his playmates and his friends.
The oldest boy was named Rundorig. He was a year or two older than Garion and quite a bit taller. Ordinarily, since he was the eldest of the children, Rundorig would have been their leader; but because he was an Arend, his sense was a bit limited and he cheerfully deferred to the younger ones. The kingdom of Sendaria, unlike other kingdoms, was inhabited by a broad variety of racial stocks. Chereks, Algars, Drasnians, Arends, and even a substantial number of Tolnedrans had merged to form the elemental Sendar. Arends, of course, were very brave, but were also notoriously thick-wined.
Garion's second playmate was Doroon, a small, quick boy whose background was so mixed that he could only be called a Sendar. The most notable thing about Doroon was the fact that he was always running; he never walked if he could run. Like his feet, his mind seemed to tumble over itself, and his tongue as well. He talked continually and very fast and he was always excited.
The undisputed leader of the little foursome was the girl Zubrette, a golden-haired charmer who invented their games, made up stories to tell them, and set them to stealing apples and plums from Faldor's orchard for her. She ruled them as a little queen, playing one against the other and inciting them into fights. She was quite heartless, and each of the three boys at times hated her even while remaining helpless thralls to her tiniest whim.
In the winter they slid on wide boards down the snowy hillside behind the farmhouse and returned home, wet and snow-covered, with chapped hands and glowing cheeks as evening's purple shadows crept across the snow. Or, after Durnik the smith had proclaimed the ice safe, they would slide endlessly across the frozen pond that lay glittering frostily in a little dale just to the east of the farm buildings along the road to Upper Gralt. And, if the weather was too cold or on toward spring when rains and warm winds had made the snow slushy and the pond unsafe, they would gather in the hay barn and leap by the hour from the loft into the soft hay beneath, filling their hair with chaff and their noses with dust that smelled of summer.