"The term serves as well as any other," she replied. "Call it appetite, if you wish."

"That I can understand," Maas agreed. "But don't underestimate this one - or overestimate your own power. It does not have an ordinary mind. There's something strange about it that I can't quite penetrate."

"We'll see," she said. "Sadi," she called the eunuch.

"Yes, my Queen?"

"Take the boy. Have him bathed and perfumed. He smells of boats and tar and salt water. I don't like such Alorn smells."

"At once, Eternal Salmissra."

Garion was led away to a place where there was warm water. His clothes were taken from him, and he was immersed and soaped and immersed again. Fragrant oils were rubbed into his skin, and a brief loincloth was tied about his waist. Then he was taken quite firmly by the chin and rouge was applied to his cheeks. It was during this process that he realized that the person painting his face was a woman. Slowly, almost incuriously, he let his eyes move around the bath chamber. He realized then that except for Sadi, everyone there was female. It seemed that something about that should bother him - something having to do with appearing naked in the presence of women - but he could not exactly remember what it was.

When the woman had finished painting his face, Sadi the eunuch took his arm and led him again through the dim, endless corridors back to the room where Salmissra half lay on her divan beneath the statue, admiring herself in the pedestaled mirror beside her.

"Much better," she said, looking Garion up and down with a certain appreciation. "He's much more muscular than I thought. Bring him here."

Sadi led Garion to the side of the queen's divan and gently pressed him down onto the cushions where Essia had lounged.

Salmissra reached out with a lingeringly slow hand and brushed her cold fingertips across his face and chest. Her pale eyes seemed to burn, and her lips parted slightly. Garion's eyes fixed themselves on her pale arm. There was no trace of hair on that white skin.

"Smooth," he said vaguely, struggling to focus on that peculiarity.

"Of course, my Belgarion," she murmured. "Serpents are hairless, and I am the queen of the serpents."

Slowly, puzzled, he raised his eyes to the lustrous black tresses tumbling down across one of her white shoulders.

"Only this," she said, touching the curls with a sensuous kind of vanity.

"How?" he asked.

"It's a secret." She laughed. "Someday perhaps I'll show you. Would you like that?"

"I suppose so."

"Tell me, Belgarion," she said, "do you think I'm beautiful?"

"I think so."

"How old would you say I am?" She spread her arms so that he could see her body through the filmy gauze of her gown.

"I don't know," Garion said. "Older than I am, but not too old." A brief flicker of annoyance crossed her face. "Guess," she ordered somewhat harshly.