‘Sort of,’ I replied. ‘The relationship’s more complicated, but we simplify it for the sake of convenience.’

‘All right,’ the lean Algar said, ‘then I know who he is, too. Don’t worry, Lady Polgara, I know how to keep things to myself. We’re going to have to take some precautions, aren’t we?’

‘I can handle it, Hattan.’

‘I’m sure you can, but I’d like to lend a hand anyway. Muros might not be the best place in Sendaria for the children to live, you know. There are too many foreigners here. Sulturn or Medalia would probably be safer.’ He squinted at me. ‘I think you’re going to have to move around a lot, you know. If the stories I’ve heard about you are true, you aren’t going to age the way other people do, so you probably shouldn’t stay in one place for more than ten years, and I’d stay clear of the nobility, if I were you. People notice baronesses and other high-born ladies, and you don’t want to be noticed.’

‘You’ve thought your way completely through this, haven’t you, Hattan?’

‘My daughter’s involved too, so I’ve brooded about it a bit. Would a suggestion offend you?’

‘Not at all.’

‘When you get on out into the future, you might think about apprenticing these nephews you’re looking after to various craftsmen. A carpenter doesn’t have to explain why he moves from town to town. Craftsmen move around, and nobody’s really curious about why – as long as the craftsman’s good at what he does. Every town’s got a carpenter or two, a couple of brick-masons, an apothecary shop, and so on. A tradesman’s a fixture, and he’s invisible to strangers.’

‘Hattan, you’re a treasure!’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, Lady Polgara.’

‘You’ve just solved a problem I’ve been beating myself over the head with for several years now. You’ve just told me how to keep a long line of young men invisible, and invisibility’s very difficult. I’ve tried it, so I know.’

‘I think your biggest problem’s going to be with the young men themselves,’ he said. ‘It might be safer not to even tell them who they really are. The only trouble with that is that when the important one comes along, he’s going to have to know, because there are things he’s going to have to do – and he might just have to do some of them at short notice.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Interesting problem you’ve got there, Polgara, but I’ll let you work it out.’

‘Thanks, Hattan,’ I replied sarcastically.

‘No charge, my Lady.’ Then he laughed.

The wedding took place in late summer that year. Hattan and I overrode Layna’s urges in the direction of extravagance and ostentation. My Algar friend and I were positive that Geran and Eldara would probably have only vague sketchy memories of the ceremony anyway, and there were some obvious reasons for keeping the whole affair rather quiet. In our circumstances, hiring the town-crier to shout the news to the roof-tops of Muros wouldn’t have been the course of prudence. Hattan had some difficulty persuading his wife that there was no real need for a wedding that’d go down in local history books, and I diverted her rather smoothly by raising the issue of Eldara’s wedding gown. I drew rather heavily on the designs of my instructress in the healing arts for that gown. I didn’t exactly copy Arell’s design of Beldaran’s wedding gown – at least not down to the last stitch – but I’ll confess to a bit of constructive plagiarism in the business. The fact that Eldara had raven-black hair while Beldaran’s hair had been pale blonde did dictate a few subtle variations, but all in all, the gown turned out rather well, I thought. Eldara was absolutely radiant when her father escorted her into the wedding chapel, and Geran’s reaction was very much the same as his ultimate paternal grandfather’s had been.

As I recall, I did choke just a bit when the priest who conducted the ceremony invoked the blessings of the Gods at the conclusion of the ceremony. Sendarian religion is tolerant to a fault, and ecumenicism lies at its very core. Religious tolerance is all well and good, I suppose, but when the kindly old priest asked Torak to bless a union that would ultimately produce the man destined to kill him, I quite nearly went into a seizure. Hattan, who was sitting between his weepy wife and me, took me firmly by the wrist. ‘Steady,’ he murmured.

‘Do you know what that priest just did?’ I whispered in a strangled tone.

He nodded. ‘It was a little inappropriate, I suppose, but it’s only a formality. I’m sure that Torak’s too busy to really be paying attention.’ He paused. ‘You might want to keep an eye out for a dragon lurking around the outskirts of town for the next few weeks, though.’

‘A dragon?’

‘Don’t the Murgos call Torak “the Dragon-God of Angarak”? I’m sure you could deal with him, Pol, but I’d really rather he didn’t come to pay us a call. Cows are very skittish, and if Torak starts flying over Muros belching fire, it could be very bad for business.’

‘Are you trying to be funny, Hattan?’

‘Me? Why, whatever gave you that idea, Pol?’

Chapter 27

Geran and Eldara were deliriously happy, of course. I’ve noticed over the years that these pre-ordained marriages usually are. The Purpose of the Universe has ways of rewarding those who do what it wants them to do. In time – and it actually wasn’t a very long time – Eldara started throwing up every morning, so I knew that things were proceeding normally.

I delivered her of a son in the early summer of 4013 with a certain satisfaction. Even though Geran and his new wife had done all the work, I took a certain pride in the fact that I’d made all the arrangements and that I was performing my task satisfactorily. The Rivan line was safe – for another generation, anyway.

Geran and Eldara had decided – after much discussion – to name their new son Davon, and I think that disappointed Hattan, who’d been holding out for an Algarian name for his grandson. Personally, I was just as happy that the baby had been given a more commonplace name. Algarian names tend to be just a trifle over-dramatic, and under the circumstances I didn’t really want anything about the little boy to stand out.

Eldara’s delivery had been a fairly easy one, and she was soon back on her feet again. I debated with myself at some length before I sat my little family down to have a talk with them. Despite Hattan’s reservations, I’d come to the conclusion that it would be best if the heirs to Iron-grip’s throne, and their wives, should know just exactly who they were and what dangers were lurking around out there. So after supper one evening in the early autumn, I asked Geran and Eldara to come to my library ‘for a little family conference’. I prudently ‘encouraged’ our servants to become very sleepy, and then I took Geran and his wife and baby to my library and closed the door behind us. ‘How much have you told your wife about us, Geran?’ I asked my nephew rather bluntly.