His expression grew slightly pained. ‘That is a flimsy basis for deliberate falsehood, my Lady,’ he objected.

‘Common purpose doth unite us, my Lord, and thine intimate acquaintanceship with mine agéd father doth make us e’en as brother and sister. Let us formalize our happy kinship, then, so that we may in joyous union proceed toward the accomplishment of our goal.’

‘Have thy studies perchance taken thee into the murky realms of law and jurisprudence, Lady Polgara?’ he asked me with a faint smile, ‘for thy speech doth have a legalistic flavor to it.’

‘Why, uncle Mandorin,’ I said, ‘what a thing to suggest.’

The ceremony was a charade, of course, but it satisfied Mandorin’s need for a semblance, at least, of veracity at such time as he’d be obliged to announce our kinship. We went down to the ornate chapel in the baron’s castle as soon as we had changed clothes. Mandorin wore black velvet, and, on an impish sort of whim, I conjured myself up a white satin gown. On the surface, at least, this ‘adoption’ very closely resembled a wedding.

I’ve never understood the Arendish religion, and believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time in Arendia. Chaldan, Bull-God of the Arends, seems to have a fixation on some obscure concept of honor that requires his adherents to slaughter each other on the slightest pretext. The only love an Arend seems really capable of displaying is directed toward his own sense of self-esteem, which he cuddles to his bosom like a beloved puppy. The priest of Chaldan who formalized my kinship with Baron Mandorin was a stem-faced man in an ornate red robe that managed to convey a sense of being somehow armored, but maybe that was only my imagination. He preached a war-like little sermon, urging Mandorin to carve up anybody offering me the slightest impertinence. Then he ordered me to live out my life in total, unreasoning obedience to my guardian and protector.

The fellow obviously didn’t know me.

And when the ceremony was over, I was a full-fledged member of the House of Mandor.

You didn’t know that we were related, did you, Mandorallen?

Given the response of the Dagashi I’d encountered in Wacune and Asturia, I knew that I was going to have to ‘do something’ about the white lock in my hair if I wanted to maintain any kind of anonymity in Vo Mimbre. I knew that dye, the simplest solution, wouldn’t work. I’d tried that in the past and found that dye simply wouldn’t adhere to the lock. After a bit of thought, I simply designed a coiffure that involved white satin ribbons artfully included in an elaborately braided arrangement that swept back from my face to stream freely down my back. The more I looked at the results in my mirror, the more I liked it. I’ve used it on several occasions since then, and it’s never failed to attract attention – and compliments. Isn’t it odd how an act born out of necessity often produces unexpected benefits? The style was so inherently attractive that I won’t demean it by calling it a disguise. Then, once that identifying lock had been concealed, Baron Mandorin and I, ostentatiously accompanied by twenty or so armored knights, went to Vo Mimbre.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about Vo Mimbre, but say what you will, it is impressive. The terrain upon which that fortress city stands is not spectacularly defensible. It’s no Rak Cthol or Riva by any stretch of the imagination, but then, neither is Mal Zeth in Mallorea. The builders of Vo Mimbre and Mal Zeth had obviously reached a similar conclusion that, put in its simplest terms, goes something like this: ‘If you don’t have a mountain handy, build one.’

Mandorin and I – and our clanking escort – entered Vo Mimbre and rode directly to the ducal palace. We were immediately admitted and escorted directly to Duke Corrolin’s throne-room. I cannot for the life of me remember exactly why, but I once again wore that white satin gown, and I entered that great hall that was decorated with old banners and antique weapons with a faintly bridal aura hovering about me. It was probably a bad idea, since I wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible, but I’m constitutionally incapable of blending in with the wallpaper or furniture.

Baron Mandorin introduced me, and, since he was Mimbrate to the core, rather incidentally noted that he would do vast violence to any man offering me the slightest impertinence. After I’d curtsied to Duke Corrolin, delivered myself of an appropriately girlish and empty-headed greeting, I was gathered up by the ladies of the court and whisked away while the menfolk got down to business. I did have time to note the presence of a dozen or so men wearing Tolnedran mantles in the crowd before I left, however, and when I sent out a probing thought from the middle of that gaily-dressed throng of young Mimbrate noblewomen who were rushing me away, I caught the now familiar dull black tinge that identified Murgos – or Dagashi – and I also sensed some red auras. Evidently, Kadon had raided Ctuchik’s treasury for enough gold to buy up several real Tolnedrans. What troubled me the most, however, was a momentary flicker of glossy black. There was Grolim somewhere in the crowd, and that in itself was an indication that what had happened in Vo Wacune and Vo Astur had been peripheral. The core of Ctuchik’s plot was here in Vo Mimbre.

It pains me to say it about my own gender, but young women, particularly young noblewomen, are a silly lot, and their conversation is top-full of empty-headed frivolity – mostly having to do with decorating themselves in such ways as to attract attention. I take a certain amount of comfort in the fact that young men aren’t much better. From a clinical point of view, the condition has a chemical basis, but I don’t know that discussing it at length right here would serve any useful purpose.

The white satin ribbons braided in my hair drew many compliments – and not a few imitations later – and the style made me appear younger, so the gaggle of giggling girls assumed that I shared their views on life, and they’d graciously ‘rescued’ me from tiresome discussions of such boring topics as the onset of general war and the mass extermination of virtually everyone on the western side of the Eastern Escarpment. I was thus treated to a fascinating afternoon of intense speculation about the impact of hemlines and hairstyles on the world situation.

Although Baron Mandorin – dare I say, uncle Mandy? – had been alerted to what was really happening and could report the details of discussions from which my gender and apparent age excluded me, there would be things happening of which he would not be aware. I needed to be present at those discussions, and, now that I’d been brought up to date on current fashions, I felt that it was time to move on. I ‘just happened’ to come down with a very bad case of sick headache the next morning and shooed my playmates out of my rooms. Then I went to the window and ‘went sparrow’, to use my father’s rather succinct characterization of the process.