Castle of Wizardry

in her armor, hung her helmet and shield on the saddle of the white horse King Cho-Hag had brought for her from Algaria and led the patient animal as she tremblingly followed the sorceress.
    "We want them to be able to see you as well as hear you," Polgara instructed, "so climb up on that piece of wall and speak from there. The spot where you'll be standing is in the shade now, but the sun's moving around so that it will be fully on you as you finish your speech. I think that will be a nice touch."
    Ce'Nedra quailed as she saw how far the sun had to go. "I think I'm going to be sick," she said in a quivering little voice.
    "Maybe later, Ce'Nedra. You don't have time just now." Polgara turned to Lelldorin. "I think you can introduce her Majesty now," she told him.
    Lelldorin stepped up onto the wall and held up his hand for silence. "Countrymen," he announced in a loud voice, "last Erastide an event took place which shook our world to its foundations. For a thousand years and more we have awaited that moment. My countrymen, the Rivan King has returned!"
    The throng stirred at his announcement, and an excited buzz rippled through it.
    Lelldorin, always extravagant, warmed to his subject. He told them of the flaming sword that had announced Garion's true identity and of the oaths of fealty sworn to Belgarion of Riva by the Alorn Kings. Ce'Nedra, almost fainting with nervousness, scarcely heard him. She tried to run over her speech in her mind, but it all kept getting jumbled. Then, in near panic, she heard him say, "Countrymen, I present to you her Imperial Highness, Princess Ce'Nedra - the Rivan Queen." And all eyes turned expectantly to her.
    Trembling in every limb, she mounted the broken wall and looked at the faces before her. All her preparations, all the rehearsed phrases, evaporated from her mind, and she stood, white-faced and shaking, without the faintest idea of how to begin. The silence was dreadful.
    As chance had it, one of the young Asturians in the very front had tasted perhaps more wine that morning than was good for him. "I think her Majesty has forgotten her speech," he snickered loudly to one of his companions.
    Ce'Nedra's reaction was instantaneous. "And I think the gentleman has forgotten his manners," she flared, not even stopping to think. Incivility infuriated her.
    "I don't think I'm going to listen to this," the tipsy young man declared in a tone filled with exaggerated boredom. "It's just a waste of time. I'm not a Rivan and neither are any of the rest of you. What could a foreign queen possibly say that would be of any interest to Asturian patriots?" And he started to turn away.
    "Is the patriotic Asturian gentleman so wine-soaked that he's forgotten that there's more to the world than this forest?" Ce'Nedra retorted hotly. "Or perhaps he's so unschooled that he doesn't know what's happening out there." She leveled a threatening finger at him. "Hear me, patriot," she said in a ringing voice. "You may think that I'm just here to make some pretty little speech, but what I've come to say to you is the most important thing you'll ever hear. You can listen, or you can turn your back and walk away-and a year from now when there is no Asturia and when your homes are smoking in ruins and the Grolims are herding your families to the altar of Torak with its fire and its bloody knives, you can look back on this day and curse yourself for not listening."
    And then as if her anger with this one rude young man had suddenly burst a dam within her, Ce'Nedra began to speak. She spoke to them directly, not with the studied phrases she had rehearsed, but with words that came from her heart. The longer she spoke, the more impassioned she became. She pleaded; she cajoled - and finally she commanded. She would never remember exactly what she said, but she would never forget how she felt as she said it. All the passion and fire that had filled the stormy outbursts and tantrums of her girlhood came into full play. She spoke fervently with no thought of herself, but rather with an allconsuming belief in what she said. In the end she won them over.
    As the sun fell full upon her, her armor gleamed and her hair seemed to leap into flame. "Belgarion, King of Riva and Overlord of the West, calls you to war!" she declared to them. "I am Ce'Nedra, his queen, and I stand before you as a living banner. Who among you will answer Belgarion's call and follow me?"
    It was the young man who had laughed at her whose sword leaped