Guardians of the West

as his father -and immensely strong." She turned her attention back to Errand's hair.
    "Was he as tall as Barak?"
    "Taller, but not quite so thick-bodied. King Cherek himself was seven feet tall, and all of his sons were very big men. Dras Bull-neck was like a tree trunk. He blotted out the sky. Iron-grip was leaner and he had a fierce black beard and piercing blue eyes. By the time he and Beldaran were married, there were touches of gray in his hair and beard; but even so, there was a kind of innocence about him that we could all sense. It was very much like the innocence we all feel in Errand here."
    "You seem to remember him very well. For me, he's always been just somebody in a legend. Everybody knows about the things he did, but we don't know anything about him as a real man."
    "I'd remember him a bit more acutely, Garion. After all, there had been the possibility that I might have married him."
    "Iron-grip?"
    " Aldur told father to send one of his daughters to the Rivan King to be his wife. Father had to choose between Beldaran and me. I think the old wolf made the right choice, but I still looked at Iron-grip in a rather special way." She sighed and then smiled a bit ruefully. "I don't think I'd have made him a good wife," she said. "My sister Beldaran was sweet and gentle and very beautiful. I was neither gentle nor very attractive."
    "But you're the most beautiful woman in the world, Aunt Pol," Garion objected quickly.
    "It's nice of you to say that, Garion, but when I was sixteen, I wasn't what most people would call pretty. I was tall and gangly. My knees were always skinned, and my face was usually dirty. Your grandfather was never very conscientious about looking after the appearance of his daughters.
    Sometimes whole weeks would go by without a comb ever touching my hair. I didn't like my hair very much, anyway. Beldaran's was soft and golden, but mine was like a horse's mane, and there was this ugly white streak." She absently touched the white lock at her left brow with the comb.
    "What caused that?" he asked curiously.
    "'Your grandfather touched me there with his hand the first time he saw me -when I was just a baby. The lock turned white instantly. We're all marked in one way or another, you know. You have the mark on your palm; I have this white lock; your grandfather has a mark just over his heart. It's in different places on each of us, but it means the same thing."
    "What does it mean?"
    "It has to do with what we are, dear." She turned Errand around and looked at him, her lips pursed. Then she gently touched the curls just over his ears. "Anyway, as I was saying, I was wild and willful and not at all pretty when I was young. The Vale of Aldur isn't really a very good place for a girl to grow up, and a group of crotchety old sorcerers is not really a very good substitute for a mother. They tend to forget that you're around. You remember that huge, ancient tree in the middle of the Vale?"
    He nodded.
    "I climbed up into that tree once and stayed there for two weeks before anyone noticed that I hadn't been underfoot lately. That sort of thing can make a girl feel neglected and unloved."
    "How did you finally find out -that you're really beautiful, I mean?"
    She smiled. "That's another story, dear." She looked at him rather directly. "Do you suppose we can stop tiptoeing around the subject now?"
    "What?"
    "That business in your letter about you and Ce'Nedra."
    "Oh, that. I probably shouldn't have bothered you with it, Aunt Pol. It's my problem, after all." He looked away uncomfortably .
    "Garion," she said firmly, "in our particular family there's no such thing as a private problem. I thought you knew that by now. Exactly what is the difficulty with Ce'Nedra?"
    "It's just not working, Aunt Pol," he said disconsolately. "There are things that I absolutely have to see to by myself, and she wants me to spend every waking minute with her -well, at least she used to. Now we go for days without seeing each other at all. We don't sleep in the same bed any more, and-" He looked suddenly at Errand and coughed uncomfortably .
    "There," Polgara said to Errand as if nothing had happened. "I guess you're presentable now. Why don't you put on that brown wool cape and go find Durnik? Then the two of you can go down to the stables and visit the horse."
    "All right, Polgara," Errand agreed, slipping down off the stool and going to fetch the cape.
    "He's a very good little boy, isn't he?" Garion said to