"Not really. Just remembering something I heard once." The old man went to the fire and held out his hands to the crackling flames. "How are your people coming on that ship?"

"I expect that it's going to be tomorrow at the earliest before it's ready," Urgit replied. "Winter's coming on, and the seas around the southern tip of the Urga peninsula are never what you'd call placid, even in the best of seasons, so I ordered the shipwrights to take special pains." He leaned forward and negligently tossed his chicken leg into the fireplace. "It was burned," he said absently. "Every meal I get in this place is either burned or raw." He looked peculiarly at Belgarath. "You intrigue me, old man. You don't seem like the type to wind up his career hiring himself out to a Nyissan slaver."

"Appearances can be deceiving." Belgarath shrugged. . "You don't look much like a king, either, but you do have the crown, after all."

Urgit reached up and pulled off his iron circlet. He looked at it distastefully and then held it out to Belgarath. "You want this thing?" he asked. "I'm sure you'd look more regal than I do, and I'd be very happy to get rid of it—particularly in view of the fact that Kal Zakath so keenly wants to take my head out from under it." He dropped it on the floor beside his chair with a dull clink. "Let's go back to something we were discussing yesterday. You told me that you know Belgarion."

Belgarath nodded.

"How well?"

"How well can any man know another?"

"You're evading my question."

"It seems that way, doesn't it?"

Urgit let that pass. He looked intently at the old man. "How do you think Belgarion would really react if I proposed that he ally himself with me to drive the Malloreans off the continent? I'm sure their presence here worries him almost as much as it does me."

"The chances aren't very good," Belgarath told him. "You might be able to persuade Belgarion that it's a good idea, but the rest of the Alorn monarchs would probably object."

"They reached an accommodation with Drosta, didn't they?"

"That was between Rhodar and Drosta. There's always been a certain wary friendship between the Drasnians and the Nadraks. The one you'd need to get to accept your idea would be Cho-Hag, and Cho-Hag's never been exactly cordial to Murgos."

"I need allies, old man, not platitudes." Urgit paused. "What if I got word to Belgarath?"

"What would you say to him?"

"I'd try to persuade him that Zakath's a much greater danger to the Kingdoms of the West than I am. Maybe he could make the Alorns listen to reason."

"I don't think you'd have much luck there, either." The old man looked into the dancing flames with the firelight gleaming on his short, silvery beard. "You have to understand that Belgarath doesn't live in the same world with ordinary men. He lives in the world of first causes and primal forces. I'd imagine that he looks upon Kal Zakath as little more than a minor irritation."

"Torak's teeth!" Urgit swore. "Where am I going to get the troops I need?"

"Hire mercenaries," Silk suggested without turning from the window where he stood.

"What?"

"Dip into the royal vaults and bring out some of the fabled red gold of Angarak. Send word into the Kingdoms of the West that you need good men and that you're willing to pay them good gold. You'll be swamped with volunteers."

"I prefer men who fight for patriotism—or religion," Urgit declared stiffly.

Silk turned with an amused expression. "I've noticed that preference in many kings," he observed. "It doesn't put such a strain on royal treasuries. But believe me, your Majesty, loyalty to an ideal can vary in its intensity, but loyalty to money never changes. That's why mercenaries are better fighters."

"You're a cynic," Urgit accused.

Silk shook his head. "No, your Majesty. I'm a realist." He stepped over to Sadi and murmured something. The eunuch nodded, and the rat-faced little Drasnian quietly left the room.

Urgit raised one eyebrow inquiringly.

"He's going to go start packing, your Majesty," Sadi explained. "If we're going to sail tomorrow, we need to start getting ready."

Urgit and Sadi talked quietly for about a quarter of an hour, and then the door at the far end of the room opened again. Polgara and the other ladies entered with the Lady Tamazin.

"Good morning, mother," Urgit greeted her. "You slept well, I trust?"

"Quite well, thank you." She looked critically at him. "Urgit, where's your crown?"

"I took it off. It gives me a headache."

"Put it back on at once."

"What for?"

"Urgit, you don't look very much like a king. You're short and thin and you've got a face like a weasel. Murgos are not bright. If you don't wear your crown all the time, it's altogether possible that they'll forget who you are. Now put it back on."

"Yes, mother." He picked up his crown and clapped it back on his head. "How's that?"

"It's lopsided, dear," she said in a calm tone so familiar ; that Garion gave Polgara a quick, startled look. "Now you look like a drunken sailor."

Urgit laughed and straightened his crown.

Garion looked closely at Ce'Nedra to see if there were any traces left of the storm of weeping that had swept over her the previous day, but he saw no evidence that it might immediately return. She was engaged in a murmured conversation with the Cthan Princess, Prala, and the Murgo girl's face clearly showed that she had already fallen under the queen's spell.

"And you, Urgit," Lady Tamazin said, "did you sleep well?"

"I never really sleep, mother. You know that. I decided years ago that sleeping nervously is infinitely preferable to sleeping permanently."

Garion found himself making a difficult readjustment in his thinking. He had never liked Murgos. He had always distrusted and even feared them. King Urgit's personality, however, was as un-Murgoish as his appearance. He was quick and volatile, and his moods swung from sardonic amusement to gloom so rapidly that Garion was quite uncertain what to expect next. He was obviously not a strong king, and Garion had been a king long enough himself to see where Urgit was making his mistakes. In spite of himself, though, Garion found that he actually liked him and felt a peculiar sympathy for him as he struggled with a job for which he was hopelessly unsuited. That, of course, created a problem. Garion did not want to like this man, and this unwanted sympathy seemed wildly out of place. He rose from his chair and withdrew to the far end of the room, making some pretense of looking out the window so that he might put himself beyond the range of the Murgo King's urbane wit. With a kind of unbearable urgency, he wanted to be on board ship and away from this ugly Murgo city, huddled on its barren coast, and from the weak, fearful man who was not really such a bad fellow, but whom Garion knew he should regard as an enemy.