That had to wait, however, because Polgara came out of the bedroom just then. ‘Give him to me,’ she told Riva.
‘What for?’ Iron-grip’s voice had a possessive tone to it.
‘It’s time he had something to eat. I think Beldaran ought to take care of that – unless you want to do it.’
He actually blushed as he quickly handed the baby over.
I wasn’t able to attend to my little project until the following morning. I don’t think the baby got very much sleep that night. Everybody wanted to hold him. He took it well, though. My grandson was an uncommonly good-natured baby. He didn’t fuss or cry, but just examined each new face with that same grave, serious expression. I even got the chance to hold him once – for a little while. I took him in my hands and winked at him. He actually smiled. That made me feel very good, for some reason.
There was a bit of an argument the next morning, however. ‘He needs to get some sleep,’ Polgara insisted.
‘He needs to do something else first,’ I told her.
‘Isn’t he a little young for chores, father?’
‘He’s not too young for this one. Bring him along.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the throne room. Just bring him, Pol. Don’t argue with me. This is one of those things that’s supposed to happen.’
She gave me a strange look. ‘Why didn’t you say so, father?’
‘I just did.’
‘What’s happening here?’ Riva asked me.
‘I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. Come along.’
We trooped through the halls from the royal apartment to the Hall of the Rivan King, and the two guards who were always there opened the massive doors for us.
I’d been in Riva’s throne room before, of course, but the size of the place always surprised me just a bit. It was vaulted, naturally. You can’t really support a flat roof safely over a room of that size. Massive beams criss crossed high overhead, and they were held in place by carved wooden buttresses. There were three great stone firepits set at intervals in the floor, and a broad aisle that led down to the basalt throne. Riva’s sword hung point-down on the wall behind the throne, and the Orb resting on the pommel was flickering slightly. I’m told that it did that whenever Riva entered the hall.
We marched on down to the throne. ‘Take down your sword, Iron-grip,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘It’s a ceremony, Riva,’ I told him. ‘Take down the sword, hold it by the blade, and introduce your son to the Orb.’
‘It’s only a rock, Belgarath. It doesn’t care what his name is.’
‘I think you might be surprised.’
He shrugged. ‘If you say so.’ He reached up and took hold of the huge blade. Then he lifted down the great sword and held the pommel out to the baby in Polgara’s arms. ‘This is my son, Daran,’ he said to the Orb. ‘He’ll take care of you after I’m gone.’
I might have said it differently, but Riva Iron-grip was a plain-spoken sort of fellow who didn’t set much store in ceremonies. I immediately recognized the derivation of my grandson’s name, and I was sure that Beldaran would be pleased.
I’m almost certain that the infant Daran had been asleep in his aunt’s arms, but something seemed to wake him up. His eyes opened, and he saw my Master’s Orb, which his father was holding out to him. It’s easy to say that a baby will reach out for any bright thing that’s offered to him, but Daran knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He’d known about that before he was even born.
He reached out that small, marked hand and firmly laid it palm-down on the Orb.
The Orb recognized him immediately. It burst joyously into bright blue flame, a blue aura surrounded Pol and the baby, and the sound of millions of exulting voices seemed to echo down from the stars.
I have it on the very best of authority that the sound brought Torak howling to his feet in Ashaba, half a world away.
Pol and I stayed on the Isle of the Winds for about a month after Daran was born. There wasn’t anything urgent calling us back to the Vale, and it was a rather special time in our lives. Beldaran was up and about in a few days, and she and Pol spent most of their time together. I don’t think I’d fully understood how painful their separation had been for both of them. Every now and then, I’d catch a glimpse of Polgara’s face in an unguarded moment. Her expression was one of obscure pain. Beldaran had inexorably been drawn away from her – first by her husband and now by her baby. Their lives had diverged, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
Algar Fleet-foot left for Vo Wacune after a week or so to have a talk with the Wacite Duke. Evidently, the idea which had come to him in that mountain pass had set fire to his imagination, and he really wanted to explore the possibility of establishing a permanent cattle-fair at Murnos. Raising cows has its satisfactions, I suppose, but getting rid of them after you’ve raised them is something else. If I’d paid closer attention to the implications of his notion, I might have realized just how profoundly it would affect history. Revenues from that fair financed the military adventures of the Wacites during the Arendish civil wars, and the profits to be made in Muros almost guaranteed a Tolnedran presence there. Ultimately, I suppose, that cattle-fair was responsible for the founding of the Kingdom of Sendaria. I’ve always felt that an economic theory of history is an oversimplification, but in this case it had a certain validity.
Meanwhile, I hovered on the outskirts of my little family waiting for the chance to get my hands on my grandson. You have no idea of how difficult that was. He was Beldaran’s first child, and she treated him like a new appendage. When she wasn’t holding him, Polgara was. Then it was Riva’s turn. Then it was time for Beldaran to feed him again. They passed him around like a group of children playing with a ball, and there wasn’t room for another player in their little game.
I was finally obliged to take steps. I waited until the middle of the night, crept into the nursery, and lifted Daran out of his cradle. Then I crept out again. All grandparents have strong feelings about their grandchildren, but my motives went a little further than a simple desire to get all gooey inside. Daran was the direct result of certain instructions my Master had given me, and I needed to be alone with him for a few minutes to find out if I’d done it right.
I carried him out into the sitting room where a single candle burned, held him on my lap, and looked directly into those sleepy eyes. ‘It’s nothing really all that important,’ I murmured to him. I refuse to babble gibberish to a baby. I think it’s insulting. I was very careful about what I did, of course. A baby’s mind is extremely malleable, and I didn’t want to damage my grandson. I probed quite gently, lightly brushing my fingertips – figuratively speaking – across the edges of his awareness. The merger of my family with Riva’s was supposed to produce someone very important, and I needed to know something about Daran’s potential.
I wasn’t disappointed. His mind was unformed, but it was very quick. I think he realized in a vague sort of way what I was doing, and he smiled at me. I suppressed an urge to shout with glee. He was going to work out just fine. ‘We’ll get to know each other better later on,’ I told him. ‘I just thought I ought to say hello.’ Then I took him back to the nursery and tucked him into his cradle.
He watched me a lot after that, and he always giggled when I winked at him. Riva and Beldaran thought that was adorable. Polgara, however, didn’t. ‘What