The Seeress of Kell

cottage a day or so later. Poledra looked rather critically down from the hilltop above it. "You've made some changes, I see," she said to her daughter.
    "Do you mind, mother?" Aunt Pol asked.
    "Of course not, Polgara. A house should reflect the character of its owner."
    "I'm sure there are a million things to do," Durnik said. "Those fences really need attention. We'll have hundreds of Algar cows in the dooryard if I don't mend them."
    "And I'm sure the cottage needs a thorough cleaning," his wife added.
    They rode down the hill, dismounted, and went inside. "Impossible," Polgara exclaimed, looking about in dismay at the negligibly thin film of dust lying over everything. "We'll need some brooms, Durnik," she said.
    "Of course, dear," he agreed.
    Belgarath was rummaging through the pantry.
    "None of that now, father," Polgara told him crisply. "I want you and Uncle Beldin and Garion to go out there and clear the weeds out of my kitchen garden."
    “What?” he demanded incredulously.
    "I'll want to plant tomorrow," she told him. "Open the ground for me, father."
    Garion, Beldin, and Belgarath rather disconsolately went out to the lean-to where Durnik kept his tools.
    Garion looked with a sense of defeat at Aunt Pol's kitchen garden, which seemed quite large enough to provide food for a small army.
    Beldin gave the ground a few desultory chops with his hoe. "This is ridiculous!" he burst out. He threw down his hoe and pointed one finger at the ground. As he moved the finger, a neat furrow of freshly plowed earth moved resolutely across the garden.
    "Aunt Pol will be angry," Garion warned the hunchback.
    "Not if she doesn't catch us," Beldin growled, looking at the cottage where Polgara, Poledra, and the Rivan Queen were busy with brooms and dustcloths. "Your turn, Belgarath," he said. "Try to keep the furrows straight."
    "Let's see if we can coax some ale from Pol before we rake it," Beldin suggested when they had finished. "This is hot work even doing it this way."
    As it happened, Durnik had also returned to the house briefly to refresh himself before returning to the fence line. The ladies were busily wielding their brooms, stirring up the dust, which, Garion observed, stubbornly settled back on places already swept. Dust was like that sometimes.
    "Where's Geran?" Ce'Nedra suddenly exclaimed, dropping her broom and looking around in dismay.
    Polgara's eyes went distant. "Oh, dear," she sighed. "Durnik," she said quite calmly, "go fish him out of the creek, please."
    "What?" Ce'Nedra almost screamed as Durnik, moving rapidly, went outside.
    "He's all right, Ce'Nedra," Polgara assured her. "He just fell into the creek, that's all."
    "That's all?" Ce'Nedra's voice went up another octave.
    "It's a common pastime for young boys," Polgara told her. "Garion did it, Eriond did it, and now Geran's doing it. Don't ,worry. He swims rather well, actually."
    "How did he learn to swim?"
    "I haven't the faintest idea. Maybe little boys are born with the ability some of them, anyway. Garion was the only one who tried drowning.”
    "I was starting to get the hang of swimming, Aunt Pol," he objected, "before I came up under that log and hit my head."
    Ce'Nedra stared at him in horror, and then she quite suddenly broke down and began to cry.
    Durnik was carrying Geran by the back of his tunic when he returned. The little boy was dripping wet, but seemed quite happy, nonetheless. "He's really very muddy, Pol," the smith noted. "Eriond used to get wet, but I don't think he ever got this muddy."
    "Take him outside, Ce'Nedra," Polgara instructed. "He's dripping mud on our clean floor. Garion, there's a washtub in the lean-to. Put it in the dooryard and fill it." She smiled at Geran's mother. "It's about time for him to have a bath anyway. For some reason, little boys always seem to need bathing. Garion used to get dirty even while he was asleep."
    On one perfect evening, Garion joined Belgarath just outside the cottage door. "You seem a bit pensive, Grandfather. What's the problem?"
    “I’ve been thinking about living arrangements. Poledra's going to be moving back into my tower with me."
    "So?"
    "We're probably going to become involved in a decade or so of cleaning and hanging window curtains. How can a man took out at the world with window curtains in his way?"
    "Maybe she won't make such an issue of it. Back on Perivor, she said that wolves aren't as compulsively tidy as birds are."
    "She lied, Garion. Believe me, she lied."
    The