Polgara the Sorceress

Kamion, my urbane blond suitor, stood near the door. His expression was one of yearning regret as I passed out of his life forever. With exquisite grace he bowed to me as I went out from that place, never to return.

My sister’s wedding was fast approaching, and, though we didn’t talk about it, we both wanted to spend as much time with each other as possible. Since Beldaran was to be queen, a fair number of young Rivan ladies had attached themselves to her. After her wedding and subsequent coronation, they would become her ladies in waiting. I’ve noted that a king can be a remote, even isolated person, since his power is all the company he really needs. Queens, though, like other women, need company. I also noted that I made my sister’s companions just a bit nervous. I suppose that’s not too surprising. Beldaran’s disposition was sunny, and mine wasn’t, for one thing. Beldaran was about to be married to a man she loved to the point of distraction, and about all that lay in my future was the loss of a sister who’d always been the absolute center of my life. Moreover, Beldaran’s companions had heard of my farewell performance for the adolescents, and sorcerers – sorceresses in my case – always seem to make people nervous.

Our major preoccupation at that time was Beldaran’s wedding gown, and that brought Arell into our lives.

I’m certain that common Rivan name’s familiar to Ce’Nedra.

Arell was a dressmaker. Most of the ladies who follow that profession are thin, wispy girls of a retiring nature. Arell wasn’t like that at all. In some ways she was like a drill sergeant, issuing commands in a crisp, businesslike tone of voice that brooked no nonsense. She was, as they say, generously proportioned. Though she was only in her mid-thirties, she had what is called a matronly bosom. She was also a somewhat earthy lady. Since her alternate profession involved midwifery, there was very little in the functions of the human body that surprised her. In many ways she was much the same kind of person Queen Layla of Sendaria came to be.

There was a great deal of blushing going on as she spoke of the physical side of marriage while her flickering needle dipped in and out of the gleaming white fabric that was to become my sister’s wedding gown. ‘Men worry too much about that kind of thing,’ she said on one occasion, biting off the thread on the hem of Beldaran’s gown. ‘No matter how big and important they seem in the outside world, they all turn into little boys in the bedroom. Be gentle with them, and don’t ever laugh. You can laugh later, when you’re alone.’

My sister and I didn’t really need Arell’s instruction. Mother had carefully explained the entire procedure to us. But how was Arell to know that?

‘Does it hurt?’ one of Beldaran’s blonde companions asked apprehensively. That question always seems to come up in these discussions among young women.

Arell shrugged. ‘Not too much, if you relax. Just don’t tense up, and everything will be all right.’

I don’t really need to go into much greater detail on that subject, do I?

Although our attention to the business of dressmaking kept our fingers busy, and Arell’s clinical descriptions of intimacy occupied our minds, our little frenzy of dressmaking was actually a kind of farewell for my sister and me. We spoke to each other almost exclusively in ‘twin’, and we were seldom very far from each other. The apartment we shared was a bright, sun-filled set of rooms that overlooked a garden. The windows of our apartment were not on the seaward side of the Citadel, so they were not the defensively narrow embrasures that pierced the thick wall on the far side. Beldaran and I were probably not going to spend our time shooting arrows at the roses in the garden below, so our windows were broad and quite tall. When the prevailing clouds permitted, the sun shone very brightly into the rooms cluttered with scraps of fabric, bolts of cloth and those necessary wooden stands upon which our various gowns were to be hung. Without those stands, each of us would have been obliged to stand for days on end during the tedious business of fitting.

The walls of the Citadel are uniformly grey, both inside and out, and grey’s a depressing color. Evidently some considerate Rivan lady had noticed that fact, so those apartments customarily used by ladies were softened by stout fabric hangings in various hues. The hangings in our apartment were alternately deep blue and rich gold, and the rough stone floor was softened here and there with golden lambskin rugs, a real blessing for those women who tend to go about barefooted when they’re not in public. Ladies’ shoes may look very nice, but they’re not made for comfort. There was a balcony outside the main room in our apartment, and it had a stone bench built out from the balustrade at its outer edge. When the weather was fine, Beldaran and I spent most of our time out there, sitting very close.

We didn’t speak often, since words aren’t really necessary between twins. We did, however, remain in almost constant physical contact with each other. That’s one of the characteristics of twinhood. If you have occasion to observe a set of twins, you’ll probably notice that they touch each other far more often than is the case with untwinned brothers and sisters.

There was a deep sadness in our communion. Beldaran’s marriage would inevitably draw us apart, and we both knew it. We’d always been one. Now we’d be two, and I think we both hated the concept of twoness.

When Beldaran’s gown was finished to Arell’s satisfaction, our mentor turned her attention to the rest of us. Since I was the sister of the bride, I came next.

‘Strip,’ Arell commanded me.

‘What?’ I exclaimed. I didn’t really think I could be shocked, but I was wrong.

Take off your clothes, Polgara,’ she said quite firmly. ‘I need to see what I’m working with.’

I actually blushed, but I did as she told me to.

She studied my near naked body with pursed lips and a speculative eye. ‘Not too bad,’ she observed.

That was hardly complimentary.

‘You’re lucky, Polgara,’ she told me. ‘Most girls your age are quite flat-chested. I think we might want to take advantage of that to draw attention away from the fact that you’re just a little hippy.’

‘I’m what?’ I exclaimed.

‘You were built to bear children, Polgara. It’s useful, but it makes your clothes hang all wrong.’

‘Is she telling me the truth?’ I asked Beldaran, speaking in ‘twin’ so that Arell couldn’t understand me.

‘You are sort of round down there, Pol,’ Beldaran replied. Then she grinned a naughty little grin at me. ‘If we cut your gown low enough in the back, we could show off the dimples on your bottom.’

‘I’ll get you for that, Beldaran,’ I threatened.

‘No you won’t, Pol,’ she said, stealing a favorite joke from uncle Beldin and our father. ‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’

My gown was blue, and Arell’s design left my shoulders and a significant part of my upper torso bare. It was trimmed with snowy lace, and it was really a very nice gown. I almost choked when I first tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror, however. ‘I can’t wear this in public!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m half naked!’

‘Don’t be such a goose, Polgara,’ Arell told me. ‘A well-designed gown’s supposed to highlight a woman’s best features. You’ve got a shapely bosom. I’m not going to let you hide it in a canvas bag.’

‘It really looks very nice, Pol,’ Beldaran assured me. ‘Nobody’s going to be looking at your hips if you wear that.’

‘I’m getting just a little tired of all this talk about hips, Beldaran,’ I said acidly. ‘You’re not exactly scrawny yourself, you know.’

‘The whole secret to wearing a daring dress is to be proud of what it reveals,’ Arell told me. ‘You’ve got a good figure. Flaunt it.’

‘This is Beldaran’s party, Arell,’ I protested. ‘She’s the one who’s supposed to attract attention, not me.’

‘Don’t be so coy, Polgara,’ she scolded me. ‘I’ve heard all about your little experiments in self-display in that large room down the hall, so don’t play innocent with me.’

‘At least I didn’t take my clothes off.’

‘You might as well have. Who designed those awful gowns you used to wear?’

‘Well – I needed a dress in Camaar, and father had a dressmaker sew one up for me. When we got here, I had another dressmaker copy it for the rest of them.’

‘I might have known,’ she sniffed. ‘Don’t ever let a Sendar design your clothes. They’re the prissiest people in the world. All right,’ she said then, ‘let’s get to work on the dresses for these other ladies.’ She squinted around at Beldaran’s attendants. ‘Green, I think,’ she mused. ‘We don’t want the dresses of the rest of the wedding party to clash with those of the bride and her sister.’

I’ve sometimes wondered about Arell. She was just a bit too domineering to be entirely an Alorn lady. I think I’ll talk with mother about that. Mother’s not above tampering with people at times.

Beldaran, of course, was nervous on the night before her wedding. It may not appear so, but brides are usually almost as nervous as grooms are on that particular night. Women are better at hiding things, though.

‘Don’t take it so seriously, Beldaran,’ Arell advised my sister. ‘A wedding’s a chance for others to enjoy themselves. The bride and groom aren’t much more than ornaments.’

‘I’m not feeling very ornamental right now, Arell,’ Beldaran replied. ‘Would you excuse me please? I think I’ll go throw up for a while.’

The night passed, as nights are in the habit of doing, and the day dawned clear and sunny – a rarity on the Isle of the Winds. It’s a nice island, but it has an almost impossible climate.

The wedding was scheduled for midday, largely because Alorn males celebrate on the night before a wedding, and they tend to feel a little delicate the following morning, so they need some time to pull themselves together.

We had plenty to keep us busy, though. Beldaran took the ritual pre-nuptial bath, and when she emerged, her attendants anointed her gleaming body with rosewater. Then there was all the business with hair, and that consumed most of the rest of the morning. Then we all sat around in our undergarments to avoid wrinkling our gowns.

At the last possible minute we all dressed, and Arell critically examined all of us. ‘It’ll do, I suppose,’ she noted. ‘Enjoy the wedding, girls. Now scoot.’

We all trooped on down to the antechamber just outside the Hall of the Rivan King, where the wedding was to take place.

I was a bit puzzled by my sister’s behavior once we entered that antechamber. She seemed almost inhumanly composed. All traces of her previous nervousness had vanished, and she seemed bemused and distant. Mother explained my sister’s detachment to me later. Much of what happened during the wedding was symbolic, and Beldaran was following some very precise instructions.

I kept watch at the door, and so it was that I saw the arrival of Riva, his father, and his brothers.