‘Polgara’s not particularly partial to beards, Anrak,’ I explained.

‘She didn’t have to be so insulting though, did she? Do I really look like a rat hiding in a clump of bushes?’

‘Polgara exaggerates sometimes,’ Beldaran told him. ‘She takes a little getting used to.’

‘I don’t think it’d work out,’ he decided. ‘I’m not trying to insult you, Belgarath, but you left a lot of the bark on that one when you were raising her. If I decide that I really want to get married, I think I’ll choose a nice Alorn girl. Sorcerese girls are a little too complicated for me.’

‘Sorcerese?’

‘Isn’t that what your race is called?’

‘It’s a profession, Anrak, not a race.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’

Gelheim drew several pictures of Beldaran, and then he left. ‘Tell Riva that we’ll be along in the spring,’ Anrak told him.

Gelheim nodded, then started out through the dreary tag-end of winter. He was almost as close-mouthed as Algar was.

Anrak spent much of his time at the twins’ tower, but he came by one day to tell me about Riva’s progress on the hall he was building at the upper end of the city. ‘Actually, it’s a little showy for my taste,’ he said somewhat critically, ‘not that it’s got all that many frills or anything, but it’s awfully big. I didn’t think Riva was that full of himself.’

‘He’s following instructions,’ I explained. ‘The Hall of the Rivan King is there to protect the Orb, not the people who live inside. We definitely don’t want Torak to get his hands on it again.’

‘There isn’t much danger of that, Belgarath. He’d have to get past Dras and Algar first, and Bear-shoulders has a fleet of war-boats patrolling the Sea of the Winds. One-eye might start out with a big army, but there wouldn’t be very many of them left by the time they reached the Isle.’

‘It doesn’t hurt to take a few extra precautions.’

The weather finally broke about a month later, and we started making preparations for the trip.

‘Are we almost ready to leave?’ Beldaran asked one fine spring afternoon.

‘I don’t think we need to bring the furniture,’ Beldin said a bit sourly. Beldin believed in traveling light.

‘I’ll go get Polgara, then,’ she said.

‘She won’t come, Beldaran,’ I said.

‘Oh, she’ll come, all right.’ There was an uncharacteristic hint of steel in my younger daughter’s voice.

‘She doesn’t approve of this wedding, you know.’

‘That’s her problem. She is going to attend, whether she likes it or not.’ It was easy to underestimate Beldaran because of her sweet, sunny disposition. She rarely asserted any kind of authority, largely because she didn’t have to. We all loved her so much that she usually got what she wanted without making any fuss about it. When one of us crossed her, however, she could be very firm. She’d been a bit disappointed that the twins wouldn’t be going with us, but somebody had to stay in the Vale, and the twins weren’t really comfortable in the presence of strangers.

I think I’d have given a great deal to have heard the conversation between my daughters when Beldaran went to the tree to fetch Pol. Neither of them would talk about it afterward. But though Polgara was a bit sullen, she did come with us.

We skirted the eastern border of Ulgoland, of course, but that was standard practice in those days. Beldin scouted ahead. We weren’t really expecting any trouble, but Beldin never missed an opportunity to fly.

I wonder how he and Vella are getting along. She doesn’t have her daggers any more, but I’d imagine that her beak and talons sort of make up for that.

The weather was particularly fine that year, and the snow had largely melted in the passes through the Sendarian Mountains. When we reached Muros, Anrak went on ahead. ‘Riva’s instructions,’ he explained. ‘As soon as I get to the coast, I’m supposed to send word to him. He’ll bring a ship and meet us in Camaar.’

‘Do we really think it’s safe to take father back to Camaar?’ Polgara said with just a hint of spitefulness. But both the girls were a little nervous in Muros. Sometimes I forgot about the fact that they’d never been out of the Vale before, and strangers made them uncomfortable. Muros wasn’t much of a town in those days, but it still had more people in it than my daughters were used to.

We hired a carriage there and rode down-river in style. When we reached Camaar, I did not revisit the waterfront. We took lodgings in one of the better inns in the main part of town, and I let Beldin go find Anrak.

‘Riva’s on the way,’ Anrak assured us when Beldin brought him to our inn. ‘He’s probably crowded on several acres of sail. He really wants to meet you, Pretty.’

Beldaran blushed.

‘Disgusting,’ Polgara muttered. I knew that this was all going to come to a head eventually. Polgara’s discontent about her sister’s impending wedding was probably quite natural. There were ties between my daughters that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Polgara seemed to be the dominant twin, but she was the one who automatically spoke in plurals - which is usually the sign of the submissive sister. To this very day, if you’re impolite enough to ask Polgara how old she is, she’ll probably say something like, ‘We’re about three thousand - or so.’ Beldaran’s been gone for a long time, but she still looms very large in Polgara’s conception of the world.

I think that someday I’ll have a long talk with Pol about that. The world-view of someone who’s never really been alone might be very interesting.

And then Riva arrived in Camaar. I’m sure that the citizens noticed him. It wasn’t so much the fact that he was seven feet tall that got their attention. I think it might have had something to do with the way he tried to walk straight through anything or anyone standing between him and Beldaran. I’ve seen people who were in love before, but nobody has ever taken it to such extremes as Riva did.

When he came into the room at the inn - Beldin was quick enough to get the door open for him before he walked right through it - he took one look at my blonde daughter, and that was it for him.

Beldaran had been practicing a pretty little speech, but when she saw Riva’s face, she lost it entirely.

They didn’t say anything to each other! Have you ever spent an entire afternoon in the room with two people who don’t talk at all, but just sit gazing into each other’s faces?

It finally got to the point that it was embarrassing, so I spent the afternoon looking at Polgara instead. Now, there was a study for you. There was so much naked emotion in that room that the air almost seemed to crackle with it. At first Polgara looked at Iron-grip with open and undisguised hostility. Here was her rival, and she absolutely hated him. Gradually, however, the sheer force of the absolute adoration with which Riva and Beldaran gazed at each other began to impress itself upon her. Polgara can keep her emotions from showing on her face, but she can’t control her eyes. I watched those glorious eyes of hers flicker back and forth from steely grey to deepest lavender as her conflicting emotions struggled within her. It took her a long time. Polgara isn’t one to give up easily. Finally, however, she sighed a long, quavering sigh, and two great tears welled up in those eyes. She quite obviously realized that she had lost. There was no way she could compete with the love between her sister and the Rivan King.

I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for her at that point, so I went over to where she was sitting and took her dirty hand in mine. ‘Why don’t we step outside, Pol?’ I suggested gently. ‘Get a bit of air?’

She gave me a quick, grateful look, nodded mutely, and rose to her feet. We left the room with dignity.

There was a balcony at the end of the hallway outside the room, and we went there. ‘Well,’ she said in an almost neutral tone of voice, ‘I guess that settles that, doesn’t it?’

‘It was settled a long time ago, Pol,’ I told her. ‘This is one of those Necessities. It has to happen.’

‘It always comes back to that, doesn’t it, father?’

‘Necessity? Of course, Pol. It has to do with who we are.’

‘Does it ever get any easier?’

‘Not that I’ve noticed.’

‘Well, I just hope that they’ll be happy.’ I was so proud of her at that moment that my heart almost burst.

Then she suddenly turned to me. ‘Oh, father!’ she cried with a broken-hearted wail. She clung to me in a sudden storm of weeping.

I held her, saying, ‘There, there.’ That’s one of the stupidest things a man can possibly say, but under the circumstances, it was the best I could manage.

In time she got it under control, and she sniffed, a particularly unlovely sound.

‘Use your handkerchief,’ I told her.

‘I forgot to bring one.’

I made one for her - right there on the spot - and offered it to her.

‘Thank you.’ She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Is there a bathhouse in this place?’ she asked then.

‘I think so. I’ll ask the innkeeper.’