‘I noticed that myself.’

The bells of Riva pealed out that morning in celebration, and the Rivan people rejoiced, although there were some, many perhaps, who secretly wished that the royal infant might have been another boy, just for the sake of dynastic security. The Rivans, kingless for so many centuries, were nervous about that sort of thing.

Ce’Nedra, of course, was radiant. She expressed only minimal dissatisfaction with Garion’s choice of a name for their daughter. Her Dryad heritage felt rather strongly the need for a name beginning with the traditional ‘X’. She worked with it a bit, however, and came up with a satisfactory solution to the problem. Garion was fairly certain that in her own mind she had inserted an ‘X’ somewhere in Beldaran’s name. He decided that he didn’t really want to know about it.

The Rivan Queen was young and healthy, and she recovered from her confinement quickly. She remained in bed for a few days – largely for the dramatic effect on the stream of Rivan nobility and foreign dignitaries who filed through the royal bedchamber to view the tiny queen and the even tinier princess.

After a few days, Poledra spoke with Garion. ‘That more or less takes care of business here,’ she said, ‘and we really should get started back to the Vale. Polgara’s time is coming closer, you know.’

Garion nodded. ‘I asked Greldik to stay,’ he told her. ‘He’ll get us back to Sendaria faster than anybody else can.’

‘He’s a very undependable man, you know.’

‘Aunt Pol said exactly the same thing. He’s still the finest sailor in the world. I’ll make arrangements to have horses put on board his ship.’

‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘We’re in a hurry, Garion. Horses would only slow us down.’

‘You want to run all the way from the coast of Sendaria to the Vale?’ he asked her, a little startled.

‘It’s not really all that far, Garion,’ she smiled.

‘What about supplies?’

She gave him an amused look, and he suddenly felt very foolish.

Garion’s goodbyes to his family were emotional, though brief. ‘Be sure to dress warmly,’ Ce’Nedra instructed. ‘It’s winter, you know.’

He decided not to tell her exactly how he and his grandmother intended to travel.

‘Oh,’ she said, handing him a parchment sheet, ‘give this to Aunt Pol.’

Garion looked at the sheet. It was a rather fair artist’s sketch, in color, of his wife and daughter.

‘It’s quite good, isn’t it?’ Ce’Nedra said.

‘Very good,’ he agreed.

‘You’d better run along now,’ she said. ‘If you stay much longer, I won’t let you go at all.’

‘Keep warm, Ce’Nedra,’ he said, ‘and look after the children.’

‘Naturally. I love you, your Majesty.’

‘I love you, too, your Majesty.’ He kissed her and his son and daughter and quietly left the room.

The weather at sea was blustery, but the militantly impetuous Greldik paid almost no attention to weather, no matter how foul. His patched and decidedly scruffy-looking ship ran before the wind across a storm sea under far more sail than even a marginally prudent sea-captain would have crowded onto his masts, and two days later, they reached the coast of Sendaria.

‘Any empty beach will do, Greldik,’ Garion told him. ‘We’re in sort of a hurry, and if we stop at Sendar, Fulrach and Layla will tie us up with congratulations and banquets.’

‘How do you propose to get off a beach without horses?’ Greldik asked bluntly.

‘There are ways,’ Garion told him.

‘More of that sort of thing?’ Greldik said with a certain distaste.

Garion nodded.

‘That’s unnatural, you know.’

‘I come from an unnatural sort of family.’

Greldik grunted disapprovingly and ran his ship in close to a wind-swept beach bordered on its upper edge with the rank grass of a salt-flat. ‘Does this one suit you?’ he asked.

‘It’s just fine,’ Garion said.

Garion and his grandmother waited on the windy beach with their cloaks whipping around them until Greldik was well out to sea. ‘I suppose we can get started now,’ Garion said, shifting his sword into a more comfortable position.

‘I don’t know why you brought that,’ Poledra said.

‘The Orb wants to see Aunt Pol’s baby,’ he shrugged.

‘That may just be the most irrational thing I’ve ever heard anyone say, Garion. Shall we go?’

They shimmered and blurred, and then two wolves loped up the beach to the bordering grass and ran smoothly inland.

It took the two of them a little more than a week to reach the Vale. They stopped only rarely to hunt and even more infrequently to rest. Garion learned a great deal about being a wolf during that week. Belgarath had given him a certain amount of instruction in the past, but Belgarath had come into wolfhood when he had been full-grown. Poledra, on the other hand, was the genuine article.

They crested the hill overlooking the cottage one snowy evening and looked down at the tidy farmstead with its fence-lines half buried in snow and the windows of the cottage glowing a warm, welcoming yellow.

‘Are we in time?’ Garion asked the golden-eyed wolf beside him.

‘Yes,’ Poledra replied. ‘One suspects, however, that the decision not to burden ourselves with the beasts of the man-things was wise. The time is very close. Let us go down and find out what is happening.’

They loped on down the hill through swirling snow-flakes and changed back into their own forms in the dooryard.

The interior of the cottage was warm and bright. Polgara more than a little ungainly, was setting places for Garion and her mother at the table. Belgarath sat near the fire, and Durnik was patiently mending harness.

‘I saved some supper for you,’ Pol told Garion and Poledra. ‘We’ve already eaten.’

‘You knew we’d get here this evening?’ Garion asked.

‘Of course, dear. Mother and I always stay more or less in constant contact. How’s Ce’Nedra?’

‘She and Beldaran are just fine.’ He said it in an offhand sort of way. Aunt Pol had surprised him often enough in the past. Now it was his turn.

She almost dropped a plate, and her glorious eyes grew wide. ‘Oh, Garion,’ she said, embracing him suddenly.

‘Does the name please you? Just a little?’