"You're jumping to conclusions, Durnik," Wolf told him. "Things never went any further. It might have been better if they had. Adultery isn't really all that serious, and in time they'd have gotten bored with it. But, since they both loved and respected the baron too much to dishonor him, Mandorallen left the castle before things could get out of hand. Now they both suffer in silence. It's all very touching, but it seems like a waste of time to me. Of course I'm older."

"You're older than everyone, father," Aunt Pol said.

"You didn't have to say that, Pol."

Silk laughed sardonically. "I'm glad to see that our stupendous friend at least has the bad taste to fall in love with another man's wife. His nobility was beginning to get rather cloying." The little man's expression had that bitter, self mocking cast to it Garion had first seen in Val Alorn when they had spoken with Queen Porenn.

"Does the baron know about it?" Durnik asked.

"Naturally," Wolf replied. "That's the part that makes the Arends get all mushy inside about it. There was a knight once, stupider than most Arends, who made a bad joke about it. The baron promptly challenged him and ran a lance through him during the duel. Since then very few people have found the situation humorous."

"It's still disgraceful," Durnik said.

"Their behavior's above reproach, Durnik," Aunt Pol maintained firmly. "There's no shame in it as long as it doesn't go any further."

"Decent people don't allow it to happen in the first place," Durnik asserted.

"You'll never convince her, Durnik," Mister Wolf told the smith. "Polgara spent too many years associating with the Wacite Arends. They were as bad or worse than the Mimbrates. You can't wallow in that kind of sentimentality for that long without some of it rubbing off. Fortunately it hasn't totally blotted out her good sense. She's only occasionally girlish and gushy. If you can avoid her during those seizures, it's almost as if there was nothing wrong with her."

"My time was spent a little more usefully than yours, father," Aunt Pol observed acidly. "As I remember, you spent those years carousing in the waterfront dives in Camaar. And then there was that uplifting period you spent amusing the depraved women of Maragor. I'm certain those experiences broadened your concept of morality enormously."

Mister Wolf coughed uncomfortably and looked away.

Behind them, Mandorallen had remounted and begun to gallop back down the hill. The lady stood in the archway with her red cloak billowing in the wind, watching him as he rode away.

They were five days on the road before they reached the River Arend, the boundary between Arendia and Tolnedra. The weather improved as they moved farther south, and by the morning when they reached the hill overlooking the river, it was almost warm. The sun was very bright, and a few fleecy clouds raced overhead in the fresh breeze.