"Aunt Pol is over three thousand years old." Garion shrugged.

Zakath began to tremble. "And Belgarath's been grieving all that time?"

"Yes." Garion didn't really want to talk just then. All he wanted to do was to drink in the radiant faces of his family. The word came to him unbidden, and he suddenly remembered that bleak tune after he had first learned that Aunt Pol was not, strictly speaking, his aunt. He had felt then so terribly alone an orphan in the most dreadful sense of the word. It had taken years, but now everything was all right. His family was nearly complete. Belgarath, Poledra, and Aunt Pol did not speak, for speech was largely unnecessary. Instead they simply sat in chairs drawn closely together gazing into each other's faces and holding hands. Garion could only faintly begin to understand the intensity of their emotions. He did not, however, feel cut off from them, but rather seemed somehow to share their joy.

Durnik crossed the room to the rest of them. Even solid, practical Durnik's eyes shone with unshed tears. "Why don't we leave them alone?" he suggested. "It's a good time to get the packing done anyway. We have a ship to catch, you know."

"She said you knew," Ce'Nedra said accusingly to Garion when they had returned to their room.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"She asked me to keep it to myself."

"That doesn't apply to your own wife, Garion."

"It doesn't?" he asked in feigned surprise. "When did they pass that rule?"

"I just made it up," she admitted. "Oh, Garion," she said then, throwing her arms about his neck and kissing him, "I do love you.”

"I certainly hope so. Shall we pack?"

The corridors of the royal palace here in Perivor were cool as Garion and Ce'Nedra returned to the central room, and the arched embrasures admitted golden morning sunlight as if even the elements were bestowing a benediction on what was, after all, a special, even sacred, day.

When they had all gathered once again, Belgarath and his wife and daughter had composed themselves enough so that they welcomed company.

"Would you like to have me introduce them, mother?" Aunt Pol asked.

"I know all of them, Polgara," Poledra replied. “I’ve been with you for quite some time, remember?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to see if you could figure it out for yourself. You disappointed me just a bit, Polgara."

"Mother," Aunt Pol protested, "not in front of the children."

They both laughed that same warm, rich laugh. "Ladies and gentlemen," Polgara said then, "this is my mother, Poledra."

They crowded around the tawny-haired legend. Silk extravagantly kissed her hand. "I suppose, Lady Poledra," he said slyly, "we should congratulate Belgarath. All things considered, I think you got the worst of that bargain. You daughter's been trying to reform him for about three eons now without much notable success."