Xera turned to Garion. "The acorns are not really from my mother," she explained. "They're gifts from the trees themselves."

"Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?" Garion demanded of Ce'Nedra.

She sniffed and returned to her digging.

"While they're still just young shoots, Ce'Nedra will bind them together," Xera went on. "The shoots will intertwine as they grow, embracing each other and forming a single tree. It's the Dryad symbol for marriage. The two will become one - just as you and Ce'Nedra will."

"That remains to be seen," Ce'Nedra sniffed, trowelling busily in the dirt.

Garion sighed. "I hope the trees are patient."

"Trees are very patient, Garion," Xera replied. She made a little gesture that Ce'Nedra could not see, and Garion followed her to the other end of the garden.

"She does love you, you know," Xera told him quietly. "She won't admit it, of course, but she loves you. I know her well enough to see that."

"Why's she acting the way she is, then?"

"She doesn't like being forced into things, that's all."

"I'm not the one who's forcing her. Why take it out on me?"

"Whom else can she take it out on?"

Garion hadn't thought of that. He left the garden quietly. Xera's words gave him some hope that one of his problems, at least, might eventually be resolved. Ce'Nedra would pout and storm for a while, and then - after she had made him suffer enough - she would relent. Perhaps it might speed things along if he suffered a bit more obviously.

The other problems had not changed significantly. He was still going to have to lead an army against Kal Torak; Belgarath had still given no sign that his power was intact; and someone in the Citadel was still, so far as Garion knew, sharpening another knife for him. He sighed and went back to his own rooms where he could worry in private.

Somewhat later he received word that Aunt Pol wanted to see him in her private apartment. He went immediately and found her seated by the fire, sewing as usual. Belgarath, dressed in his shabby old clothes, sat in one of the deep, comfortable chairs on the other side of the fire with his feet up and a tankard in his hand.

"You wanted to see me, Aunt Pol?" Garion inquired as he entered.

"Yes, dear," she replied. "Sit down." She looked at him somewhat critically. "He still doesn't look much like a king, does he, father?"

"Give him time, Pol," the old man told her. "He hasn't been at it for very long."

"You both knew all along, didn't you?" Garion accused them. "Who I was, I mean."

"Naturally," Aunt Pol answered in that maddening way of hers.

"Well, if you'd wanted me to behave like a king, you should have told me about it. That way I'd have had some time to get used to the idea."