Queen of Sorcery

crisp, golden brown, and even the sulky little princess found nothing to complain about as she ate.
    After they had finished, they set aside their plates and took up the problem of Ce'Nedra and her flight from Tol Honeth. Jeebers had sunk into such abject melancholy that he could offer little to the discussion, and Ce'Nedra adamantly announced that even if they were to turn her over to the Borunes in the city, she would run away again. In the end, they reached no conclusion.
    "We're in trouble no matter what we do," Silk summed it all up ruefully. "Even if we try to deliver her to her family, there are bound to be some embarrassing questions, and I'm sure she can be counted on to invent a colorful story that will put us in the worst possible light."
    "We can talk about it some more in the morning," Aunt Pol said. Her placid tone indicated that she had already made up her mind about something, but she did not elaborate.
    Shortly before midnight, Jeebers made his escape. They were all awakened by the thudding of his horse's hooves as the panic-stricken tutor fled at a gallop toward the walls of Tol Borune.
    Silk stood in the flickering light of the dying fire, his face angry. "Why didn't you stop him?" he asked Hettar, who had been standing watch.
    "I was told not to," the leather-clad Algar said with a glance at Aunt Pol.
    "It solves the only real problem we had," Aunt Pol explained. "The schoolmaster would only have been excess baggage."
    "You knew he was going to run away?" Silk asked.
    "Naturally. I helped him to arrive at the decision. He'll go straight to the Borunes and try to save his own skin by informing them that the princess ran away from the palace on her own and that we have her now."
    "You have to stop him then," Ce'Nedra said in a ringing voice. "Go after him! Bring him back!"
    "After all the trouble I went to persuading him to leave?" Aunt Pol asked. "Don't be foolish."
    "How dare you speak to me like that?" Ce'Nedra demanded. "You seem to forget who I am."
    "Young lady," Silk said urbanely, "I think you'd be amazed at how little Polgara's concerned about who you are."
    "Polgara?" Ce'Nedra faltered. "The Polgara? I thought you said that she was your sister."
    "I lied," Silk confessed. "It's a vice I have."
    "You're not an ordinary merchant," the girl accused him.
    "He's Prince Kheldar of Drasnia," Aunt Pol said. "The others have a similar eminence. I'm sure you can see how little your title impresses us. We have our own titles, so we know how empty they are."
    "If you're Polgara, then he must be-" The princess turned to stare at Mister Wolf, who had seated himself on the lowest step of the stile to pull on his shoes.
    "Yes," Aunt Pol said. "He doesn't really look the part, does he?"
    "What are you doing in Tolnedra?" Ce'Nedra asked in a stunned voice. "Are you going to use magic of some kind to control the outcome of the succession?"
    "Why should we?" Mister Wolf said, getting to his feet. "Tolnedrans always seem to think that their politics shake the whole world, but the rest of the world's really not all that concerned about who gains the throne in Tol Honeth. We're here on a matter of much greater urgency." He looked off into the darkness in the direction of Tol Borune. "It will take Jeebers a certain amount of time to convince the people in the city that he's not a lunatic," he said, "but it would probably be a good idea if we left the area. I imagine we'd better stay away from the main highway."
    "That's no problem," Silk assured him.
    "What about me?" Ce'Nedra asked.
    "You wanted to go to the Wood of the Dryads," Aunt Pol told her. "We're going in that direction anyway, so you'll stay with us. We'll see what Queen Xantha says when we get you there."
    "Am I to consider myself a prisoner then?" the princess asked stifliy.
    "You can if it makes you feel better, dear," Aunt Pol said. She looked at the tiny girl critically in the flickering firelight. "I'm going to have to do something about your hair, though. What did you use for dye? It looks awful."

Chapter Nineteen
    THEY MOVED RAPIDLY SOUTH for the next few days, traveling frequently at night to avoid the mounted patrols of legionnaires who were beating the countryside in their efforts to locate Ce'Nedra.
    "Maybe we should have hung on to Jeebers," Barak muttered sourly after one near-brush with the soldiers. "He's roused every garrison from here to the border. It might have been better to have dropped him off in some isolated place or