“Where was Morzan’s castle?”

“Is, not was; the castle still stands. Galbatorix uses it for himself now. It is situated among the foothills of the Spine, near the northwestern shore of Leona Lake, hidden well away from the rest of the land.”

Eragon said, “Jeod told me that Brom snuck into the castle by pretending to be one of the servants.”

“He did, and it was no easy task. Morzan had impregnated his fortress with hundreds of spells designed to protect him from his enemies. He also forced everyone who served him to swear oaths of fealty, and often with their true names. However, after much experimentation, Brom managed to find a flaw in Morzan’s wards that allowed him to procure a position as a gardener on his estate, and it was in that guise he first met your mother.”

Glancing down at his hands, Eragon said, “And then he seduced her to hurt Morzan, I suppose.”

“Not at all,” replied Oromis. “That may have been his intention to begin with, but then something happened neither he nor your mother anticipated: they fell in love. Whatever affection your mother once had for Morzan had vanished by then, expunged by his cruel treatment of her and their newborn child, Murtagh. I do not know the exact sequence of events, but at some point Brom revealed his true identity to your mother. Instead of betraying him, she began to supply the Varden with information about Galbatorix, Morzan, and the rest of the Empire.”

“But,” said Eragon, “didn’t Morzan have her swear oaths of fealty to him in the ancient language? How could she turn against him?”

A smile appeared on Oromis’s thin lips. “She could because Morzan allowed her somewhat more freedom than his other servants so that she could use her own ingenuity and initiative while carrying out his orders. In his arrogance, Morzan believed that her love for him would ensure her loyalty better than any oath. Also, she was not the same woman who had bound herself to Morzan; becoming a mother and meeting Brom altered her character to such a degree that her true name changed, which released her from her previous commitments. If Morzan had been more careful—if, for example, he had cast a spell that would alert him if ever she failed to abide by her promises—he would have known the moment he lost control over her. But that was always a shortcoming of Morzan’s; he would devise a cunning spell, but then it would fail because, in his impatience, he overlooked some crucial detail.”

Eragon frowned. “Why didn’t my mother leave Morzan once she had the chance?”

“After all she had done in Morzan’s name, she felt it was her duty to help the Varden. But more importantly, she could not bring herself to abandon Murtagh to his father.”

“Couldn’t she have taken him with her?”

“If it had been within her power, I am sure she would have. Morzan realized that the child gave him a vast amount of control over your mother. He forced her to surrender Murtagh to a wet nurse and only allowed her to visit him at infrequent intervals. What Morzan did not know is that, during those intervals, she also visited Brom.”

Oromis turned to watch a pair of swallows cavorting in the blue sky. In profile, his delicate, slanted features reminded Eragon of a hawk or a sleek cat. Still gazing at the swallows, Oromis said, “Not even your mother could anticipate where Morzan would send her next, nor when she could return to his castle. Therefore, Brom had to remain on Morzan’s estate for extended lengths of time if he wished to see her. For nigh on three years, Brom served as one of Morzan’s gardeners. Now and then, he would slip away to send a message to the Varden or to communicate with his spies throughout the Empire, but other than that, he did not leave the castle grounds.”

“Three years! Wasn’t he afraid that Morzan might see him and recognize him?”

Oromis lowered his gaze from the heavens, returning it to Eragon. “Brom was most adept at disguising himself, and it had been many years since he and Morzan had last stood face to face.”

“Ah.” Eragon twisted his goblet between his fingers, studying how the light refracted through the crystal. “Then what happened?”

“Then,” said Oromis, “one of Brom’s agents in Teirm made contact with a young scholar by the name of Jeod who wished to join the Varden and who claimed to have discovered evidence of a hitherto-secret tunnel that led into the elf-built portion of the castle in Urû’baen. Brom rightly felt that Jeod’s discovery was too important to ignore, so he packed his bags, made his excuses to his fellow servants, and then departed for Teirm with all possible haste.”

“What of my mother?”

“She had left a month before on another of Morzan’s missions.”

Struggling to weld a cohesive whole out of the fragmented accounts he had heard from various people, Eragon said, “So then . . . Brom met with Jeod, and once he was convinced the tunnel was real, he arranged for one of the Varden to attempt to steal the three dragon eggs Galbatorix was holding in Urû’baen.”

Oromis’s face darkened. “Unfortunately, for reasons that have never become entirely clear, the man they selected for the task, a certain Hefring of Furnost, succeeded in filching only one egg—Saphira’s—from Galbatorix’s treasury, and once he had possession of it, he fled from both the Varden and Galbatorix’s servants. Because of his betrayal, Brom had to spend the next seven months chasing Hefring back and forth across the land in a desperate attempt to recapture Saphira.”

“And during that time, my mother traveled in secret to Carvahall, where she gave birth to me five months later?”