"I know everything that happens in Tol Honeth, Lord Grinneg," the Emperor snapped. "Even if all my cousins and nephews are running like rats out of a burning house, I still have a few faithful people around me. Whatever possessed you to take up with that Nadrak woman? I thought you Alorns despised Angaraks."

Grinneg coughed awkwardly and glanced quickly at Aunt Pol. "It was a kind of joke, your Highness," he said. "I thought it might embarrass the Nadrak ambassador - and his wife is, after all, a handsomelooking woman. I didn't know she kept a pair of scissors under her bed."

"She keeps your beard in a little gold box, you know." The emperor smirked. "And she shows it to all her friends."

"She's an evil woman," Grinneg said mournfully.

"Who are these?" the Emperor asked, waving one finger at the members of the party standing on the grass somewhat behind Ambassador Grinneg.

"My cousin Barak and some friends," Grinneg said. "They're the ones who have to talk to you."

"The Earl of Trellheim?" the Emperor asked. "What are you doing in Tol Honeth, my Lord?"

"Passing through, your Highness," Barak replied, bowing.

Ran Borune looked sharply at each of the rest in turn as if actually seeing them for the first time. "And this would be Prince Kheldar of Drasnia," he said, "who left Tol Honeth in a hurry last time he was here - posing as an acrobat in a traveling circus, I believe, and about one jump ahead of the police."

Silk also bowed politely.

"And Hettar of Algaria," the Emperor continued, "the man who's trying to depopulate Cthol Murgos singlehandedly."

Hettar inclined his head.

"Morin," the Emperor demanded sharply, "why have you surrounded me with Alorns? I don't like Alorns."

"It's this matter of urgency, your Highness," Morin replied apologetically.

"And an Arend?" the Emperor said, looking at Mandorallen. "A Mimbrate, I should say." His eyes narrowed. "From the descriptions I've heard, he could only be the Baron of Vo Mandor."

Mandorallen's bow was gracefully elaborate. "Throe eye is most keen, your Highness, to have read us each in turn without prompting."

"Not all of you precisely," the Emperor said. "I don't recognize the Sendar or the Rivan lad."

Garion's mind jumped. Barak had once told him that he resembled a Rivan more than anything else, but that thought had been lost in the welter of events which had followed the chance remark. Now the Emperor of Tolnedra, whose eye seemed to have an uncanny ability to penetrate to the true nature of things, had also identified him as a Rivan. He glanced quickly at Aunt Pol, but she seemed absorbed in examining the buds on a rosebush.

"The Sendar is Durnik," Mister Wolf said, "a smith. In Sendaria that useful trade is considered somewhat akin to nobility. The lad is my grandson, Garion."