Magician's Gambit

bit sheepish, but she also laughed.
    Garion, who was standing not far away, turned to look at them. "What's so funny?" he asked.
    "Nothing you'd understand, dear," Polgara told him.
    He looked offended and moved away, his back stiff and his face set. Ce'Nedra and Polgara laughed again.
    When Captain Greldik's ship finally reached the point where rocks and swiftly tumbling water made it impossible to go any farther, they moored her to a large tree on the north bank, and the party prepared to go ashore. Barak stood sweating in his mail shirt beside his friend Greldik, watching Hettar oversee the unloading of the horses. "If you happen to see my wife, give her my greetings," the red-bearded man said.
    Greldik nodded. "I'll probably be near Trellheim sometime during the coming winter."
    "I don't know that you need to tell her that I know about her pregnancy. She'll probably want to surprise me with my son when I get home. I wouldn't want to spoil that for her."
    Greldik looked a little surprised. "I thought you enjoyed spoiling things for her, Barak."
    "Maybe it's time that Merel and I made peace with each other. This little war of ours was amusing when we were younger, but it might not be a bad idea to put it aside now - for the sake of the children, if nothing else."
    Belgarath came up on deck and joined the two bearded Chereks. "Go to Val Alorn," he told Captain Greldik. "Tell Anheg where we are and what we're doing. Have him get word to the others. Tell him that I absolutely forbid their going to war with the Angaraks just now. Ctuchik has the Orb at Rak Cthol, and if there's a war, Taur Urgas will seal the borders of Cthol Murgos. Things are going to be difficult enough for us without that to contend with."
    "I'll tell him," Greldik replied doubtfully. "I don't think he'll like it much, though."
    "He doesn't have to like it," Belgarath said bluntly. "He just as to do it."
    Ce'Nedra, standing not far away, felt a little startled when she heard the shabby-looking old man issuing his peremptory commands. How could he speak so to sovereign kings? And what if Garion, as a sorcerer, should someday have a similar authority? She turned and gazed at the young man who was helping Durnik the smith calm an excited horse. He didn't look authoritative. She pursed her lips. A robe of some kind might help, she thought, and maybe some sort of book of magic in his hands - and perhaps just the hint of a beard. She narrowed her eyes, imagining him so robed, booked and bearded.
    Garion, obviously feeling her eyes on him, looked quickly in her direction, his expression questioning. He was so ordinary. The image of this plain, unassuming boy in the finery she had concocted for him in her mind was suddenly ludicrous. Without meaning to, she laughed. Garion flushed and stiffly turned his back on her.
    Since the rapids of the River of the Serpent effectively blocked all further nagivation upriver, the trail leading up into the hills was quite broad, indicating that most travelers struck out overland at that point.
    As they rode up out of the valley in the midmorning sunlight, they passed rather quickly out of the tangled jungle growth lining the river and moved into a hardwood forest that was much more to Ce'Nedra's liking. At the crest of the first rise, they even encountered a breeze that seemed to brush away the sweltering heat and stink of Nyissa's festering swamps. Ce'Nedra's spirits lifted immediately. She considered the company of Prince Kheldar, but he was dozing in his saddle, and Ce'Nedra was just a bit afraid of the sharp-nosed Drasnian. She recognized immediately that the cynical, wise little man could probably read her like a book, and she didn't really care for that idea. Instead she rode forward along the column to ride with Baron Mandorallen, who led the way, as was his custom. Her move was prompted in part by the desire to get as far away from the steaming river as possible, but there was more to it than that. It occurred to her that this might be an excellent opportunity to question this Arendish nobleman about a matter that interested her.
    "Your Highness," the armored knight said respectfully as she pulled her horse in beside his huge charger, "dost think it prudent to place thyself in the vanguard thus?"
    "Who would be so foolish as to attack the bravest knight in the world?" she asked with artful innocence.
    The baron's expression grew melancholy, and he sighed.
    "And why so great a sigh, Sir Knight?" she bantered.
    "It