King of The Murgos

side.
    Velvet stood on the walkway beside the barge. "We can only cross two at a time," she said to them, her voice echoing hollowly in the vaulted chamber, "because of the horses."
    "Cross?" Ce'Nedra said. "Cross where?"
    "To the south bank of the Nedrane," Velvet replied.
    "But we're still inside the city walls."
    "Actually, we're under the city wall, Ce'Nedra. The only thing between us and the river are two of the marble slabs that form the exterior facing."
    There came then the clanking of a heavy windlass somewhere in the dimness, and the front wall of the subterranean harbor creaked slowly open, dividing in the middle and swinging ponderously on great, well-greased iron hinges. Through the opening between the two slowly moving stone slabs, Garion could see the rain-dimpled surface of the river moving slowly by with its far shore lost in the dripping fog.
    "Very clever," Belgarath said. "How long has this house been here?"
    "Centuries," Velvet replied. "It was built to provide just about anything anyone could desire. Occasionally, one of the customers wants to leave—or enter—the city unobserved. That's what this place is for."
    "How did you find out about it?" Garion asked her.
    She shrugged. "Bethra owned the house. She told Javelin about its secrets."
    Silk sighed. "She even reaches out from the grave to help us."
    They were ferried in pairs across the foggy, rain-swept expanse of the Nedrane to land on a narrow, mist-shrouded sand beach backed by a thicket of willows. When Velvet finally joined them, it was perhaps three hours past midnight. "The oarsmen will brush our tracks out of the sand," she told them. "It's part of the service."
    "Did this cost very much?" Silk asked her.
    "A great deal, actually, but it comes out of the budget of the Drasnian Embassy. Your cousin didn't like that too much, but I persuaded him to pay—finally."
    Silk grinned viciously.
    "We have a few hours left until daylight," Velvet continued. "There's a wagon road on the other side of these willows, and it joins the Imperial Highway about a mile or so downriver. We should probably travel at a walk until we're out of earshot of the city. The legionnaires at the south gate might become curious if they hear galloping."
    They mounted their horses in the soggy darkness and rode through the willows, down onto the muddy wagon track.
    Garion pulled his horse in beside Silk's. "What was going on in that place?" he asked curiously.
    "Almost anything you could imagine." Silk laughed. "And probably a number of things you couldn't. It's a very interesting house with all sorts of diversions for people with enough money to be able to afford them."
    "Did you recognize anybody there?"
    "Several, actually—some highly respected members of the noble houses of the Empire."
    Ce'Nedra, who rode directly behind them, sniffed disdainfully. "I cannot understand why any man would choose to frequent that sort of place."
    "The customers are not exclusively male, Ce'Nedra," Silk told her.
    "You can't be serious."
    "A fair number of the highborn ladies of Tol Honeth have found all kinds of interesting ways to relieve their boredom. They wear masks, of course—although very little else. I recognized one countess, however—one of the pillars of the Horbite family."
    "If she was wearing a mask, how could you recognize her?"
    "She has a distinctive birthmark—in a place where it's seldom seen. Some years back, she and I were quite friendly, and she showed it to me."
    There was a long silence. "I don't know that I really want to discuss this any more," Ce'Nedra said primly and nudged her horse past them to join Polgara and Velvet.
    "She did ask," Silk protested innocently to Garion. "You heard her, didn't you?"
    They rode south for several days in clearing weather. Erastide had passed virtually unnoticed while they were on the road, and Garion felt a strange kind of regret about that. Since his earliest childhood, the midwinter holiday had been one of the high points of the year. To allow it to pass unobserved seemed somehow to violate something very sacred. He wished that there might have been time to buy something special for Ce'Nedra, but about the best he could manage in the way of a gift was a tender kiss.
    Some leagues above Tol Borune, they met a richly dressed couple riding north toward the Imperial Capital, accompanied by a dozen or so liveried servants. "You there, fellow," the velvet-clad nobleman called condescendingly to Silk, who happened to