Ce’Nedra, however, was already storming toward the door of the tent.
“You come back here!” he raged at her. “I haven’t finished talking to you yet.”
“Yes you have, father,” she shouted back. “Now I’m going to talk. Barak, I need that sack you have tied to your saddle.” She rushed from the tent and climbed onto her horse, spluttering with apparent fury.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Barak asked her as he tied the sack of Angarak coins to her saddle.
“Perfectly,” she replied in a calm voice.
Barak’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “You seem to have regained your temper in a remarkably short time.”
“I never lost it, Barak.”
“You were acting in there?”
“Obviously. Well, at least partially. It will take my father an hour or so to regain his composure, and by then it will be too late. Tell Rhodar and the others to prepare the army to march. The legions will be joining us.
“What makes you think that?”
“I’m going to go fetch them right now.” She turned to Mandorallen, who had just emerged from the tent. “Where have you been?” she asked. “Come along. I need an escort.”
“Where are we going, pray?” the knight asked.
“You’ll see,” she told him, and she turned her mount and rode at a trot up the hillside toward the massed legions. Mandorallen exchanged a helpless look with Barak and then clanged into his saddle to follow.
Ce’Nedra, riding ahead, carefully put her fingertips to her amulet. “Lady Polgara,” she whispered, “can you hear me?” She wasn’t certain that the amulet would work that way, but she had to try. “Lady Polgara,” she whispered again, a bit more urgently.
“What are you doing, Ce’Nedra?” Polgara’s voice sounded quite clearly in the little queen’s ears.
“I’m going to talk to the legions,” Ce’Nedra answered. “Can you fix it so they’ll hear me?”
“Yes, but the legions won’t be much interested in a speech about patriotism.”
“I’ve got a different one,” Ce’Nedra assured her.
“Your father’s having a fit in here. He’s actually foaming at the mouth.”
Ce’Nedra sighed regretfully. “I know,” she said. “It happens fairly often. Lord Morin has the medicine with him. Please try to keep him from biting his tongue.”
“You goaded him into this deliberately, didn’t you, Ce’Nedra?”
“I needed time to talk to the legions,” the princess replied. “The fit won’t really hurt him very much. He’s had fits all his life. He’ll have a nosebleed and a terrible headache when it’s over. Please take care of him, Lady Polgara. I do love him, you know.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but you and I are going to have a long talk about this, young lady. There are some things you just don’t do.”
“I didn’t have any choice, Lady Polgara. This is for Garion. Please do what you have to do so that the legions can hear me. It’s awfully important.”
“All right, Ce’Nedra, but don’t do anything foolish.” Then the voice was gone.
Ce’Nedra quickly scanned the standards drawn up before her, selected the familiar emblem of the Eighty-Third Legion, and rode toward it. It was necessary that she place herself in front of men who would recognize her and confirm her identity to the rest of her father’s army. The Eighty-Third was primarily a ceremonial unit, and by tradition its barracks were inside the Imperial compound at Tol Honeth. It was a select group, still limited to the traditional thousand men, and it served primarily as a palace guard. Ce’Nedra knew every man in the Eighty-Third by sight, and most of them by name. Confidently, she approached them.
“Colonel Albor,” she courteously greeted the commander of the Eighty-Third, a stout man with a florid face and a touch of gray at his temples.
“Your Highness,” the colonel replied with a respectful inclination of his head. “We’ve missed you at the palace.”
Ce’Nedra knew that to be a lie. The duty of guarding her person had been one of the common stakes in barracks dice games, with the honor always going to the loser.
“I need a small favor, colonel,” she said to him as winsomely as she could.
“If it’s in my power, Highness,” he answered, hedging a bit.
“I wish to address my father’s legions,” she explained, “and I want them to know who I am.” She smiled at him-warmly, insincerely. Albor was a Horbite, and Ce’Nedra privately detested him. “Since the Eighty-Third practically raised me,” she continued, “you of all people should recognize me and be able to identify me.”
“That’s true, your Highness,” Albor admitted.
“Do you suppose you could send runners to the other legions to inform them just who I am?”
“At once, your Highness,” Albor agreed. He obviously saw nothing dangerous in her request. For a moment Ce’Nedra almost felt sorry for him.
The runners—trotters actually, since members of the Eighty-Third were not very athletic—began to circulate through the massed legions. Ce’Nedra chatted the while with Colonel Albor and his officers, though she kept a watchful eye on the tent where her father was recuperating from his seizure and also on the gold-colored canopy beneath which the Tolnedran general staff was assembled. She definitely did not want some curious officer riding over to ask what she was doing.
Finally, when she judged that any further delay might be dangerous, she politely excused herself. She turned her horse and, with Mandorallen close behind her, she rode back out to a spot where she was certain she could be seen.
“Sound your horn, Mandorallen,” she told her knight.
“We are some distance from our own forces, your Majesty,” he reminded her. “I pray thee, be moderate in throe address. Even I might experience some difficulty in facing the massed legions of all Tolnedra.”
She smiled at him. “You know you can trust me, Mandorallen.”
“With my life, your Majesty,” he replied and lifted his horn to his lips.
As his last ringing notes faded, Ce’Nedra, her stomach churning with the now-familiar nausea, rose in her stirrups to speak. “Legionnaires,” she called to them. “I am Princess Ce’Nedra, the daughter of your Emperor.” It wasn’t perhaps the best beginning in the world, but she had to start somewhere, and this was going to be something in the nature of a performance, rather than an oration, so a bit of awkwardness in places wouldn’t hurt anything.
“I have come to set your minds at rest,” she continued. “The army massed before you comes in peace. This fair, green field, this sacred Tolnedran soil, shall not be a battleground this day. For today at least, no legionnaire will shed his blood in defense of the Empire.”
A ripple of relief passed through the massed legions. No matter how professional soldiers might be, an avoided battle was always good news. Ce’Nedra drew in a deep, quivering breath. It needed just a little twist now, something to lead logically to what she really wanted to say. “Today you will not be called upon to die for your brass half-crown.” The brass half crown was the legionnaire’s standard daily pay. “I cannot, however, speak for tomorrow,” she went on. “No one can say when the affairs of Empire will demand that you lay down your lives. It may be tomorrow that the interests of some powerful merchant may need legion blood for protection.” She lifted her hands in a rueful little gesture. “But then, that’s the way it’s always been, hasn’t it? The legions die for brass so that others might have gold.”
A cynical laugh of agreement greeted that remark. Ce’Nedra had heard enough of the idle talk of her father’s soldiers to know that this complaint was at the core of every legionnaire’s view of the world. “Blood and gold—our blood and their gold,” was very nearly a legion motto. They were almost with her now. The quivering in her stomach subsided a bit, and her voice became stronger.
She told them a story then—a story she’d heard in a half dozen versions since her childhood. It was the story of a good legionnaire who did his duty and saved his money. His wife had suffered through the hardships and separations that went with being married to a legionnaire. When he was mustered out of his legion, they had gone home and bought a little shop, and all the years of sacrifice seemed worthwhile.