Guardians of the West

Polgara.
    "Most of the time," she replied. "If we can keep him out of the river behind my mother's house. For some reason, he seems to feel incomplete if he can't fall into the water once or twice a month."
    Errand kissed Polgara and started toward the door.
    "Tell Durnik that I said the two of you can enjoy yourselves this morning," she told him. She gave Garion a direct look. "I think I'm going to be busy here for a few hours."
    "All right," Errand said, and went out into the corridor. He gave only the briefest of thoughts to the problem which had made Garion and Ce'Nedra so unhappy. Polgara had already taken the matter in hand, and Errand knew that she would fix things. The problem itself was not a large one, but it had somehow been exploded into something of monstrous proportions by the arguments it had caused. The smallest misunderstanding, Errand realized, could sometimes fester like a hidden wound, if words spoken in haste and in heat were allowed to stand without apology or forgiveness. He also realized that Garion and Ce'Nedra loved each other so much that they were both extremely vulnerable to those hasty and heated words. Each had an enormous power to hurt the other. Once they were both made fully aware of that, the whole business could be allowed to blow over.
    The corridors of the Citadel of Riva were lighted by torches held in iron rings protruding from the stone walls.
    Errand walked down a broad hallway leading to the east side of the fortress and the steps leading to the parapet and the battlements above. When he reached the thick east wall, he paused to look out one of the narrow windows that admitted a slender band of steel-gray light from the dawn sky. The Citadel was high above the city, and the gray stone buildings and narrow, cobblestone streets below were still lost in shadows and morning mist. Here and there, lighted windows gleamed in the houses of early risers. The clean salt smell of the sea, carried by an onshore breeze, wafted over the island kingdom. Contained within the ancient stones of the Citadel itself was the sense of desolation the people of Riva Iron-grip had felt when they had first glimpsed this rocky isle rising grim and storm-lashed out of a laden sea. Also within those stones was that stern sense of duty that had made the Rivans wrest their fortress and their city directly from the rock itself, to stand forever in defense of the Orb of Aldur.
    Errand climbed the flight of stone stairs and found Durnik standing at the battlements, looking out over the Sea of the Winds that was rolling endlessly in to crash in long, muted combers against the rocky shore.
    "She finished with your hair, I see," Durnik noted.
    Errand nodded. "Finally," he said wryly.
    Durnik laughed. "We can both put up with a few things if they please her, can't we?" he said.
    "Yes," Errand agreed. "She's talking with Belgarion right now. I think she wants us to stay away until they've talked it all out."
    Durnik nodded. "That's the best way, really. Pol and Garion are very close. He'll tell her things when they're alone that he wouldn't say if we were around. I hope she can get things straightened out between him and Ce'Nedra."
    "Polgara will fix it," Errand assured him.
    From somewhere in a meadow high above them where the morning sun had already touched the emerald grass, a shepherdess lifted her voice to sing to her flock. She sang of love in a pure, unschooled voice that rose like bird song.
    "That's the way love should be," Durnik said. "Simple and uncomplicated and clear -just like that girl's voice."
    "I know." Errand said. "Polgara said we could go visit the horse -whenever you're finished up here."
    "Of course," Durnik said, "and we could probably stop by the kitchen and pick up some breakfast along the way."
    "That's an awfully good idea, too," Errand said.
    The day went very well. The sun was warm and bright, and the horse frolicked in the exercise yard almost like a puppy.
    "The king won't let us break him," one of the grooms told Durnik. "He hasn't even been trained to a halter yet. His Majesty said something about this being a very special horse -which I don't understand at all. A horse is a horse, isn't it?"
    "It has to do with something that happened when he was born," Durnik explained.
    "They're all born the same," the groom said.
    "You had to have been there," Durnik told him.
    At supper that evening, Garion and Ce'Nedra were looking rather tentatively across the table at each other, and