Queen of Sorcery

beginning to make us all a bit moody."
    Unaccountably, Aunt Pol put her arm about Garion's shoulders as they turned toward the tower. Her fragrance and the sense of her closeness brought a lump to his throat. The distance that had grown between them in the past few months seemed to vanish at her touch.
    The chamber in the base of the tower had been built of such massive stones that neither the passage of centuries nor the silent, probing tendrils of tree roots had been able to dislodge them. Great, shallow arches supported the low stone ceiling, making the room seem almost like a cave. At the end of the room opposite the narrow doorway a wide crack between two of the rough-hewn blocks provided a natural chimney. Durnik had soberly considered the crack the previous evening when they had arrived, cold and wet, and then had quickly constructed a crude but efficient fireplace out of rubble. "It will serve," the smith had said "Not very elegant perhaps, but good enough for a few days."
    As Wolf, Garion and Aunt Pol entered the low, cavelike chamber, a good fire crackled in the fireplace, casting looming shadows among the low arches and radiating a welcome warmth. Durnik in his brown leather tunic was stacking firewood along the wall. Barak, huge, redbearded, and mail-shined, was polishing his sword. Silk, in an unbleached linen shirt and black leather vest, lounged idly on one of the packs, toying with a pair of dice.
    "Any sign of Hettar yet?" Barak asked, looking up.
    "It's a day or so early," Mister Wolf replied, going to the fireplace to warm himself.
    "Why don't you change your boots, Garion?" Aunt Pol suggested, hanging her blue cloak on one of the pegs Durnik had hammered into a crack in the wall.
    Garion lifted his pack down from another peg and began rummaging through it.
    "Your stockings, too," she added.
    "Is the fog lifting at all?" Silk asked Mister Wolf.
    "Not a chance."
    "If I can persuade you all to move out from in front of the fire, I'll see about supper," Aunt Pol told them, suddenly very businesslike. She began setting out a ham, a few loaves of dark, peasant bread, a sack of dried peas and a dozen or so leathery-looking carrots, humming softly to herself as she always did when she was cooking.
    The next morning after breakfast, Garion pulled on a fleece-lined overvest, belted on his sword, and went back out into the fog-muffled ruins to watch for Hettar. It was a task to which he had appointed himself, and he was grateful that none of his friends had seen fit to tell him that it wasn't really necessary. As he trudged through the slushcovered streets toward the broken west gate of the city, he made a conscious effort to avoid the melancholy brooding that had blackened the previous day. Since there was absolutely nothing he could do about his circumstances, chewing on them would only leave a sour taste in his mouth. He was not exactly cheerful when he reached the low piece of wall by the west gate, but he was not precisely gloomy either.
    The wall offered some protection, but the damp chill still crept through his clothes, and his feet were already cold. He shivered and settled down to wait. There was no point in trying to see any distance in the fog, so he concentrated on listening. His ears began to sort out the sounds in the forest beyond the wall, the drip of water from the trees, the occasional sodden thump of snow sliding from the limbs, and the tapping of a woodpecker working on a dead snag several hundred yards away.
    "That's my cow," a voice said suddenly from somewhere off in the fog.
    Garion froze and stood silently, listening.
    "Keep her in your own pasture, then," another voice replied shortly. "Is that you, Lammer?" the first voice asked.
    "Right. You're Detton, aren't you?"
    "I didn't recognize you. How longs it been?"
    "Four or five years, I suppose," Lammer judged.
    "How are things going in your village?" Detton asked.
    "We're hungry. The taxes took all our food."
    "Ours too. We've been eating boiled tree roots."
    "We haven't tried that yet. We're eating our shoes."
    "How's your wife?" Detton asked politely.
    "She died last year," Lammer answered in a flat, unemotional voice. "My lord took our son for a soldier, and he was killed in a battle somewhere. They poured boiling pitch on him. After that my wife stopped eating. It didn't take her long to die."
    "I'm sorry," Detton sympathized. "She was very beautiful."
    "They're both better off," Lammer declared. "They aren't cold or hungry