‘What?’ he demanded incredulously.

‘I’ll want to plant tomorrow,’ she told him. ‘Open the ground for me, Father.’

Garion, Beldin, and Belgarath rather disconsolately went out to the leanto where Durnik kept his tools.

Garion looked with a sense of defeat at Aunt Pol’s kitchen garden, which seemed quite large enough to provide food for a small army.

Beldin gave the ground a few desultory chops with his hoe. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he burst out. He threw down his hoe and pointed one finger at the ground. As he moved the finger, a neat furrow of freshly plowed earth moved resolutely across the garden.

‘Aunt Pol will be angry,’ Garion warned the hunchback.

‘Not if she doesn’t catch us,’ Beldin growled, looking at the cottage where Polgara, Poledra, and the Rivan Queen were busy with brooms and dust-cloths. ‘Your turn, Belgarath,’ he said. ‘Try to keep the furrows straight.’

‘Let’s see if we can coax some ale from Pol before we rake it,’ Beldin suggested when they had finished. ‘This is hot work – even doing it this way.’

As it happened, Durnik had also returned to the house briefly to refresh himself before returning to the fence-line. The ladies were busily wielding their brooms, stirring up the dust, which, Garion observed, stubbornly settled back on places already swept. Dust was like that sometimes.

‘Where’s Geran?’ Ce’Nedra suddenly exclaimed, dropping her broom and looking around in dismay.

Polgara’s eyes went distant. ‘Oh, dear,’ she sighed. ‘Durnik,’ she said quite calmly, ‘go fish him out of the creek, please.’

‘What?’ Ce’Nedra almost screamed as Durnik, moving rapidly, went outside.

‘He’s all right, Ce’Nedra,’ Polgara assured her. ‘He just fell into the creek, that’s all.’

‘That’s all?’ Ce’Nedra’s voice went up another octave.

‘It’s a common pastime for little boys,’ Polgara told her. ‘Garion did it, Eriond did it, and now Geran’s doing it. Don’t worry. He swims rather well, actually.’

‘How did he learn to swim?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Maybe little boys are born with the ability – some of them, anyway. Garion was the only one who tried drowning.’

‘I was starting to get the hang of swimming, Aunt Pol,’ he objected, ‘before I came up under that log and hit my head.’

Ce’Nedra stared at him in horror, and then she quite suddenly broke down and began to cry.

Durnik was carrying Geran by the back of his tunic when he returned. The little boy was dripping wet, but seemed quite happy, nonetheless. ‘He’s really very muddy, Pol,’ the smith noted. ‘Eriond used to get wet, but I don’t think he ever got this muddy.’

‘Take him outside, Ce’Nedra,’ Polgara instructed. ‘He’s dripping mud on our clean floor. Garion, there’s a wash-tub in the leanto. Put it in the dooryard and fill it.’ She smiled at Geran’s mother. ‘It’s about time for him to have a bath anyway. For some reason, little boys always seem to need bathing. Garion used to get dirty even while he was asleep.’

On one perfect evening, Garion joined Belgarath just outside the cottage door. ‘You seem a bit pensive, Grandfather. What’s the problem?’

‘I’ve been thinking about living arrangements. Poledra’s going to be moving back into my tower with me.’

‘So?’

‘We’re probably going to become involved in a decade or so of cleaning – and hanging window curtains. How can a man look out at the world with window curtains in his way?’

‘Maybe she won’t make such an issue of it. Back on Perivor, she said that wolves aren’t as compulsively tidy as birds are.’

‘She lied, Garion. Believe me, she lied.’

Two guests rode up a few days later. Despite the fact that it was almost summer now, Yarblek still wore his shabby felt overcoat, his shaggy fur hat, and a disconsolate expression. Vella, the overwhelmingly sensual Nadrak dancer, wore her usual tight-fitting black leather.

‘What are you up to, Yarblek?’ Belgarath asked Silk’s partner.

‘This wasn’t my idea, Belgarath. Vella insisted.’

‘All right,’ Vella said in a commanding voice, ‘I haven’t got all day. Let’s get on with this. Get everybody out of the house. I want witnesses to this.’

‘What exactly are we witnessing, Vella?’ Ce’Nedra asked the dark-haired girl.

‘Yarblek’s going to sell me.’

‘Vella!’ Ce’Nedra exclaimed, outraged, ‘that’s revolting!’

‘Oh, bother that,’ Vella snapped. Bother was not precisely the word Vella used. She looked around. ‘Are we all here?’

‘That’s everybody,’ Belgarath told her.

‘Good.’ She slid down from her saddle and sat cross-legged on the grass. ‘Let’s get down to business. You – Beldin, or Feldegast, or whatever you want to call yourself – one time back in Mallorea, you said you wanted to buy me. Were you serious?’

Beldin blinked. ‘Well—’ he floundered, ‘I suppose I was, sort of.’

‘I want a yes or a no, Beldin,’ she said crisply.

‘All right then, yes. You’re not a bad-looking wench, and you curse and swear rather prettily.’

‘Good. What are you prepared to offer for me?’

Beldin choked, his face going suddenly red.

‘Don’t dawdle, Beldin,’ she told him. ‘We haven’t got all day for this. Make Yarblek an offer.’

‘Are you serious?’ Yarblek exclaimed.

‘I’ve never been more serious in my life. How much are you willing to pay for me, Beldin?’

‘Vella,’ Yarblek protested, ‘this is absolute nonsense.’

‘Shut up, Yarblek. Well, Beldin? How much?’

‘Everything I own,’ he replied, his eyes filled with a kind of wonder.

‘That’s a little unspecific. Give me a number. We can’t haggle without a number.’

Beldin scratched at his matted beard. ‘Belgarath,’ he said, ‘have you still got that diamond you found in Maragor that time before the Tolnedran invasion?’

‘I think so. It’s somewhere in my tower, I believe.’

‘So’s half the clutter in the world.’