‘I already thought of that, but it won’t work. They all dose themselves with antidotes to every known poison.’

‘As far as I know, there’s no antidote for a knife-thrust in the heart, Salmissra.’

‘We don’t do things that way in Nyissa.’

‘Then your eunuchs won’t be expecting it, will they?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘No,’ she agreed, ‘they wouldn’t.’ She suddenly giggled. ‘I’d have to get them all at once, of course, but a bloodbath of those dimensions would be quite an object lesson, wouldn’t it?’

‘It’d be a long time before anybody ever tried to cross you again, dear.’

‘What a wonderful old man you are,’ she said gratefully. ‘I’ll have to find some way to reward you.’

‘I don’t really have any need for money, Salmissra.’

She gave me a long, smoldering look. ‘I’ll have to think of something else, then, won’t I?’

I thought it might be a good idea to change the subject at that point. ‘What’s happening to the south?’ I asked her.

‘You tell me. The people down there are western Dals. Nobody knows what the Dals are doing. Somehow they’re in contact with the Seers at Kell. I think we’d all better keep an eye on the Dals. In many ways they have a more dangerous potential than the Angaraks. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Torak’s left the ruins of Cthol Mishrak. He’s in a place called Ashaba in the Karandese mountains now. He’s passing orders on to the Grolims through Ctuchik and Urvon. Nobody knows where Zedar is.’ She paused. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit here beside me?’ she offered again. ‘We wouldn’t really have to get married, you know. I’m sure Aldur wouldn’t object to a more informal arrangement. Come sit beside me, Belgarath, and we can talk about that reward I mentioned. I’m sure I’ll be able to think of something you’d like.’

Chapter 20

When you consider all the trouble I’ve had with a long string of Salmissras, my feelings about that particular one are just a bit unusual, but then so was she. The selection of each new Queen of Nyissa is based almost entirely on physical appearance. At a certain point in the life of a reigning queen, twenty candidates for the succession are chosen. The palace eunuchs have a painting of the original Salmissra, and they go through the kingdom comparing that painting to the faces of all the twelve-year-old girls they can find. Twenty are selected and are taken to country estates lying in the vicinity of Sthiss Tor for training. When the old queen dies, the twenty are closely examined, and one of them is elevated to the throne. The other nineteen are killed. It’s brutal, but it is politically sound. Appearance and manner are the deciding factors in the election. Intelligence is not taken into consideration. In that kind of random selection, however, you have as much chance of choosing a genius as an idiot. Quite clearly, they got a bright one this time. She was beautiful, of course. Salmissra always is. She had all of the proper mannerisms, naturally, since her very life had depended on learning those mannerisms. She had, however, been clever enough to conceal her intelligence, her sense of humor, and the sheer force of her personality - until after she’d ascended the throne. Once she’d been crowned queen, she thought she was safe. I imagine that the palace eunuchs were very upset when they discovered her true nature - upset enough at any rate to start planning her assassination.

I liked her. She was an intelligent young woman making the best of a bad situation. As she’d mentioned, the various drugs she took to maintain her appearance made her infertile, but she’d already come up with a solution to that problem. I’ve always sort of wondered what might have happened if she had married. It might have changed the course of history in that part of the world.

I lingered in her palace for a couple of weeks, and then I rather regretfully moved on. My hostess was generous enough to lend me her royal barge, and I went up the River of the Serpent to the rapids in style for a change.

When the barge reached the rapids, I went ashore on the north bank and took the trail that wound up into the mountains toward Maragor.

It was a relief to get up out of the Nyissan swamps. For one thing, I didn’t have to keep a constant eye out for snakes anymore, and for another, I wasn’t continually trailing a cloud of mosquitoes. I’m not really sure which of them is worse. The air grew cooler as I ascended into that spur of mountains, and the forests thinned out. I’ve always rather liked mountains.

There was a bit of trouble at the border of Maragor. The Marags were still practicing that ritual cannibalism Beldin had told me about, and the border guards tended to look upon travelers as a food source. I didn’t have too much trouble persuading them that I probably wouldn’t taste good, though, and then I went northeast toward the capital at Mar Amon.

I believe I’ve hinted at some of the peculiarities of the Marag culture before, but I suspect I’ll have to be a little more specific at this point. The God Mara was just a bit overly enthusiastic about physical beauty. For a woman, this presents no particular problem; she either has it or she hasn’t. A man, however, has to work on it. Masculine beauty involves muscle development, so Marag men spent a great deal of time lifting heavy things over their heads. That gets boring after a while, though, and there’s not much point in having bushel-baskets full of muscles if you don’t use them for something. The men of Maragor devised contests of various sorts - running, jumping, throwing things, swimming, and the like. Unfortunately, if you develop enough muscles, they’ll eventually start to squeeze your head and reduce the size of your brain. In time, most of the men of Maragor were all as beautiful as marble statues - and almost as intelligent. They were totally incapable of even taking care of themselves, and so the women had to take over. They owned all the property, and they housed their childlike heroes in dormitories and arranged various athletic competitions that kept those beautiful specimens of manhood happy.

There were far more women among the Marags than there were men, but that didn’t really cause any problems, since Marag men wouldn’t really have made good husbands anyway. The Marags got along very well without marriage. They were happy, they enjoyed life, and they were kind and generous to each other. They seemed to be incapable of the jealousy and irrational possessiveness that mars other cultures.

I think that covers everything. For various reasons, Polgara has always had a low opinion of the Marags, and if I take this too much further, it’ll just give her another excuse to scold me.

Oh, one last thing. The Marags didn’t have a single ruler. They had a ‘Council of Matriarchs’ instead - nine middle-aged and presumably wise women who made all the decisions. It was a little unusual, but it worked out fairly well.

Maragor lay in a pleasant, fertile basin in the southern part of the Tolnedran mountains. There are extensive mineral deposits in those mountains, and the turbulent streams that run down into the basin where the Marags lived pass through those deposits and carry with them assorted minerals and a fair number of gem-stones. Unless you know what to look for, diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds appear to be no more than common pebbles. Gold, however, is plainly visible on the bottom of every brook in Maragor. The Marags ignored it. They had a barter economy and were largely self-sufficient, so they had no real interest in trade with other nations. Thus, they didn’t need money. Their idea of beauty leaned in the direction of personal physical attractiveness, so they didn’t bother with jewelry. Once you’ve eliminated money and jewelry, gold becomes largely meaningless. It’s too soft and too heavy to have any real practical use.

It did get my attention, however. I dallied a bit on my journey from the border to the capital and managed to pick up a fairly large pouchful of gold nuggets. It’s hard to walk away when there are lumps of gold lying in plain sight.

It was autumn when I reached Mar Amon, a beautiful city that lay a few leagues to the west of the large lake in the center of Maragor. I went to the temple of Mara and introduced myself to the High Priestess. There were priests, of course, but as was the case in the rest of Marag society, men played a decidedly minor role in their religion. The High Priestess was a tall, handsome woman in her mid-forties, and her name was Terell. I talked with her for a while, and I soon realized that she had no interest at all in the outside world. That was probably the fatal flaw in the Marag culture. No place is so isolated that you can safely ignore the rest of mankind - particularly when your streambeds are cluttered with free gold.

Despite the fact that I don’t have rippling biceps and a neck like a tree-trunk, the women of Mar Amon found me attractive. My celebrity may have played a part in that. The average Marag male’s sole claim to fame was most likely the fact that he’d won a foot race some years back, and his conversation tended to be a little elemental. Women, as you may have noticed, like to talk. You may have also noticed that I do, too.

I drifted around Mar Amon, and many a conversation that I struck up by saying ‘good morning’ to a Marag lady who might be out sweeping off her doorstep lasted for several weeks. The women of Maragor were generous and friendly, so I always had something to eat and a place to sleep.