"It's a Nadrak custom," Silk explained. "In their society, women are considered property. It's not seemly for a woman to go about without an owner."

"She was a slave?" Garion's knuckles grew white as he clenched his fists.

"Of course she wasn't a slave," Belgarath told him. "Can you even remotely imagine your Aunt submitting to that sort of thing?"

"But you said-"

"I said I bought her from the man who owned her. Their relationship was a formality - nothing more. She needed an owner in order to function here, and he gained a great deal of respect from other men as a result of his ownership of so remarkable a woman." Belgarath made a sour face. "It cost me a fortune to buy her back from him. I sometimes wonder if she was really worth it."

"Grandfather! "

"I'm sure she'd be fascinated by that last observation, old friend," Silk said slyly.

"I don't know that it's necessary to repeat it to her, Silk."

"You never know." Silk laughed. "I might need something from you someday."

"That's disgusting."

"I know." Silk grinned and looked around. "Your friend took quite a bit of trouble to look you up," he suggested. "What was behind it?"

"He wanted to warn me."

"That things were tense in Gar og Nadrak? We knew that already."

"His warning was a great deal more urgent than that."

"He didn't sound very urgent."

"That's because you don't know him."

"Grandfather," Garion said suddenly, "how did he manage to see my sword? I thought we'd taken care of that."

"He sees everything, Garion. He could glance once at a tree and tell you ten years later exactly how many leaves were on it."

"Is he a sorcerer?"

"Not as far as I know. He's just a strange old man who likes the mountains. He doesn't know what's going on because he doesn't want to know. If he really wanted to, he could probably find out everything that's happening in the world."

"He could make a fortune as a spy, then," Silk mused.

"He doesn't want a fortune. Isn't that obvious? Any time he needs money, he just goes back to that river bar he mentioned."

"But he said he'd forgotten how to find it," Garion protested.