"You'd be surprised at how many people think so," the Emperor replied. "Maybe you'll have better luck with my successor. If he's a Vorduvian or a Honeth, you might even be able to bribe him, but Borunes don't take bribes."

"Or advice," Aunt Pol added.

"Only when it suits us, Lady Polgara," Ran Borune said.

"I think we've done everything we can here," Wolf decided.

A bronze door at the back of the garden slammed open, and a tiny girl with flaming hair stormed through, her eyes ablaze. At first Garion thought she was a child, but as she came closer, he realized that she was somewhat older than that. Although she was very small, the short, sleeveless green tunic she wore displayed limbs that were much closer to maturity. He felt a peculiar kind of shock when he saw her - almost, but not quite, like recognition. Her hair was a tumbled mass with long, elaborate curls cascading down over her neck and shoulders, and it was a color that Garion had never seen before, a deep, burnished red that seemed somehow to glow from within. Her skin was a golden color that seemed, as she swept through the shadows of the trees near the gate, to have an almost greenish cast to it. She was in a state verging on sheer rage. "Why am I being kept prisoner here?" she demanded of the Emperor.

"What are you talking about?" Ran Borune asked.

"The legionnaires won't let me leave the palace grounds!"

"Oh," the Emperor said, "that."

"Exactly. That. "

"They're acting on my orders, Ce'Nedra," the Emperor told her.

"So they said. Tell them too stop it."

"No."

"No?" Her tone was incredulous. "No?" Her voice climbed several octaves. "What do you mean, no?"

"It's too dangerous for you to be out in the city just now," the Emperor said placatingly.

"Nonsense," she snapped. "I don't intend to sit around in this stuffy palace just because you're afraid of your own shadow. I need some things from the market."

"Send someone."

"I don't want to send anyone!" she shouted at him. "I want to go myself."

"Well, you can't," he said flatly. "Spend your time on your studies instead."

"I don't want to study," she cried. "Jeebers is a stuffy idiot, and he bores me. I don't want to sit around talking about history or politics or any of the rest of it. I just want an afternoon to myself."

"I'm sorry."

"Please, father," she begged, her tone dropping into a wheedling note. She took hold of one of the folds of his gold mantle and twisted it around one of her tiny fingers. "Please." The look she directed at the Emperor through her lashes would have melted stone.

"Absolutely not," he said, refusing to look at her. "My order stands. You will not leave the palace grounds."