The servants brought in breakfast, and Ce’Nedra, obviously remembering her promise of the previous night, fixed a plate for the puppy. The plate contained eggs, sausage, and a generous dollop of jam. The she-wolf looked away with a shudder.
They deliberately avoided the subject of tomorrow’s meeting as they ate. The meeting was inevitable now, so there was no point in talking about it.
Belgarath pushed back his plate with a look of contentment on his face. ‘Don’t forget to thank the king for his hospitality,’ he told Garion.
And then the she-wolf came over and laid her head in the old man’s lap. Belgarath looked startled. The wolf had usually avoided him. ‘What is it, little sister?’ he asked her.
Then, to everyone’s astonishment, the wolf actually laughed and spoke quite plainly in the language of humans. ‘Your brains have gone to sleep, old wolf,’ she said to Belgarath. ‘I thought you’d have known me weeks ago. Does this help?’ A sudden blue nimbus surrounded her. ‘Or this?’ She shimmered, and then the wolf was gone. Standing in its place was a tawny-haired, golden-eyed woman in a brown dress.
‘Mother!’ Aunt Pol exclaimed.
‘You’re no more observant than your father, Polgara,’ Poledra said reprovingly. ‘Garion has known for quite some time now.’
Belgarath, however, was staring in horror at the puppy.
‘Oh, don’t be silly, old man,’ his wife told him. ‘You know that we’re mated for life. The puppy was weak and sick, so the pack had to leave him behind. I cared for him, that’s all.’
The smile on the face of the Seeress of Kell was gentle. ‘This is the Woman Who Watches, Ancient Belgarath,’ she said. ‘Now is thy company complete. Know however, that she is ever with thee, as she has always been.’
Part Three
THE HIGH PLACES OF KORIM
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GARION HAD SEEN his grandmother – or her image – several times, but the similarity of her features to Aunt Pol’s seemed uncanny. There were differences, of course. Aunt Pol’s hair, except for that white lock at her brow, was dark, almost black, and her eyes were a deep, deep blue. Poledra, on the other hand, had tawny hair, hovering nearly on the verge of being as blond as Velvet’s, and her eyes were as golden as the eyes of a wolf. The features of the two women, however, were almost identical, as had been, the one time Garion had seen her image, the features of Aunt Pol’s sister Beldaran. Belgarath, his wife, and his daughter had withdrawn to the far side of the room, and Beldin, his tears glistening through his scowl, had placed himself squarely between them and the others in the room to guard their privacy during their reunion.
‘Who is she?’ Zakath asked Garion in puzzlement.
‘She’s my Grandmother,’ Garion replied simply. ‘Belgarath’s wife.’
‘I didn’t know he had a wife.’
‘Where did you think Aunt Pol came from?’
‘I guess I hadn’t thought of that.’ Zakath looked around, noting that both Ce’Nedra and Velvet were dabbing at their eyes with wispy little handkerchiefs.
‘Why is everyone so misty-eyed?’ he asked.
‘We all thought that she had died in childbirth when Aunt Pol and her sister Beldaran were born.’
‘And how long ago was that?’
‘Aunt Pol is over three thousand years old,’ Garion shrugged.
Zakath began to tremble. ‘And Belgarath’s been grieving all that time?’
‘Yes.’ Garion didn’t really want to talk just then. All he wanted to do was to drink in the radiant faces of his family. The word came to him unbidden, and he suddenly remembered that bleak time after he had first learned that Aunt Pol was not, strictly speaking, his aunt. He had felt then so terribly alone – an orphan in the most dreadful sense of the word. It had taken years, but now everything was all right. His family was nearly complete. Belgarath, Poledra, and Aunt Pol did not speak, for speech was largely unnecessary. Instead they simply sat in chairs drawn closely together gazing into each others’ faces and holding hands. Garion could only faintly begin to understand the intensity of their emotions. He did not, however, feel cut off from them, but rather seemed somehow to share their joy.
Durnik crossed the room to the rest of them. Even solid, practical Durnik’s eyes shone with unshed tears. ‘Why don’t we leave them alone?’ he suggested. ‘It’s a good time to get the packing done anyway. We have a ship to catch, you know.’
‘She said you knew,’ Ce’Nedra said accusingly to Garion when they had returned to their room.
‘Yes,’ he admitted.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘She asked me to keep it to myself.’
‘That doesn’t apply to your own wife, Garion.’
‘It doesn’t?’ he asked in feigned surprise. ‘When did they pass that rule?’
‘I just made it up,’ she admitted. ‘Oh, Garion,’ she said then, throwing her arms about his neck and kissing him, ‘I do love you.’
‘I certainly hope so. Shall we pack?’
The corridors of the royal palace here in Perivor were cool as Garion and Ce’Nedra returned to the central room, and the arched embrasures admitted golden morning sunlight as if even the elements were bestowing a benediction on what was, after all, a special, even sacred, day.
When they had all gathered once again, Belgarath and his wife and daughter had composed themselves enough so that they welcomed company.
‘Would you like to have me introduce them, Mother?’ Aunt Pol asked.
‘I know all of them, Polgara,’ Poledra replied. ‘I’ve been with you for quite some time, remember?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wanted to see if you could figure it out for yourself. You disappointed me just a bit, Polgara.’
‘Mother,’ Aunt Pol protested, ‘not in front of the children.’
They both laughed that same warm, rich laugh. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Polgara said then, ‘this is my mother, Poledra.’
They crowded around the tawny-haired legend. Silk extravagantly kissed her hand. ‘I suppose, Lady Poledra,’ he said slyly, ‘we should congratulate Belgarath. All things considered, I think you got the worst of that bargain. Your daughter’s been trying to reform him for about three eons now without much notable success.’
Poledra smiled. ‘One has perhaps greater resources at one’s command than one’s daughter, Prince Kheldar.’ She lapsed, it seemed, unconsciously into her previous mode of speech.