Aunt Pol smiled at him encouragingly, and he vaulted into his saddle with a clang and led the way at a rolling trot, his whole bearing seething with a willingness to do battle.

"What was that all about?" Wolf asked.

"Mandorallen needed something to take his mind off his troubles," she replied. "He's been out of sorts for the last few days."

As they drew closer to the city, Garion could see the scars on the great walls where heavy stones from the Angarak catapults had struck the unyielding rock. The battlements high above were chipped and pitted from the impact of showers of steel-tipped arrows. The stone archway that led into the city revealed the incredible thickness of the walls, and the ironbound gate was massive. They clattered through the archway and into the narrow, crooked streets. The people they passed seemed for the most part to be commoners, who quickly moved aside. The faces of the men in dun-colored tunics and the women in patched dresses were dull and uncurious.

"They don't seem very interested in us," Garion commented quietly to Durnik.

"I don't think the ordinary people and the gentry pay much attention to each other here," Durnik replied. "They live side by side, but they don't know anything about each other. Maybe that's what's wrong with Arendia."

Garion nodded soberly.

Although the commoners were indifferent, the nobles at the palace seemed afire with curiosity. Word of the party's entrance into the city apparently had raced ahead of them through the narrow streets, and the windows and parapets of the palace were alive with people in brightly colored clothes.

"Abate thy pace, Sir Knight," a tall man with dark hair and beard, wearing a black velvet surcoat over his polished mail, called down from the parapet to Mandorallen as they clattered into the broad plaza before the palace. "Lift thy visor so that I may know thee."

Mandorallen stopped in amazement before the closed gate and raised his visor. "What discourtesy is this?" he demanded. "I am, as all the world knows, Mandorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor. Surely thou canst see my crest upon the face of my shield."

"Any man may wear another's crest," the man above declared disdainfully.

Mandorallen's face darkened. "Art thou not mindful that no man on life would dare to counterfeit my semblance?" he asked in a dangerous tone.

"Sir Andorig," another knight on the parapet told the dark-haired man, "this is indeed Sir Mandorallen. I met him on the field of the great tourney last year, and our meeting cost me a broken shoulder and put a ringing in my ears which hath not yet subsided."

"Ah," Sir Andorig replied, "since thou wilt vouch for him, Sir Helbergin, I will admit that this is indeed the bastard of Vo Mandor."

"You're going to have to do something about that one of these days," Barak said quietly to Mandorallen.

"It would seem so," Mandorallen replied.