“Too late?” Lini said incredulously. “Why should it be too late? You bundle Gaebril out of the Palace, out of Andor, and Alteima and the others with him, and it is done with. Too late, indeed.”
For a moment Morgase could not speak. “Alteima,” she said finally, “and . . . the others?”
Lini stared at her, then shook her head in disgust. “I am an old fool; my wits are dryrooted. Well, you know now. ‘When the honey’s out of the comb, there’s no putting it back.’ ” Her voice became gentler and at the same time brisk, the voice she had used for telling Morgase that her pony had broken a leg and had to be put down. “Gaebril spends most of his nights with you, but Alteima has nearly as much of his time. He spreads himself thin with the other six. Five have rooms in the Palace. One, a big-eyed young thing, he sneaks in and out for some reason all swathed in a cloak, even in this heat. Perhaps she has a husband. I’m sorry, girl, but truth is truth. ‘Better to face the bear than run from it.’ ”
Morgase’s knees sagged, and if Lini had not hurriedly pulled a chair from the table to shove under her, she would have sat down on the floor. Alteima. Him watching the two of them as they gossiped took on a new image, now. A man fondly watching two of his pet cats at play. And six others! Rage boiled up in her, a rage that had been lacking when she only thought he was after her throne. That she had considered coldly, clearly; as clearly as she could consider anything recently. That was a danger that had to be looked at with cold reason. But this! The man had ensconced his jades in her palace. He had made her just another of his trulls. She wanted his head. She wanted him flayed alive. The Light help her, she wanted his touch. I must be going mad!
“That will be solved along with everything else,” she said coldly. Much depended on who was in Caemlyn, and who on their country estates. “Where is Lord Pelivar? Lord Abelle? Lady Arathelle?” They led strong Houses, and many retainers.
“Exiled,” Lini said slowly, giving her an odd look. “You exiled them from the city last spring.”
Morgase stared back. She remembered none of that. Except that now, dim and distant, she did. “Lady Ellorien?” she said slowly. “Lady Aemlyn, and Lord Luan?” More strong Houses. More Houses that had been behind her before she gained the throne.
“Exiled,” Lini replied just as slowly. “You had Ellorien flogged for demanding to know why.” She bent to brush Morgase’s hair back, gnarled fingers lingering on her cheek as they had when she checked for fever. “Are you well, girl?”
Morgase nodded dully, but it was because she was remembering, in a shadowy way. Ellorien, screaming in outrage as her gown was ripped down the back. House Traemane had been the very first to throw its support to Trakand, brought by a plumply pretty woman only a few years older than Morgase. Brought by Ellorien, now one of her closest friends. At least, she had been. Elayne had been named after Ellorien’s grandmother. Vaguely she could recall others leaving the city; distancing themselves from her, it seemed obvious now. And those who remained? Houses too weak to be of any use, or else sycophants. She seemed to recall signing numerous documents Gaebril had laid in front of her, creating new titles. Gaebril’s toadeaters and her enemies; they were all she could count on being strong in Caemlyn.
“I do not care what you say,” Lini said firmly. “You have no fever, but there’s something wrong. You need an Aes Sedai Healer is what you need.”
“No Aes Sedai.” Morgase’s voice was even harder. She fingered her ring again, briefly. She knew that her animosity toward the Tower had grown recently beyond what some might say was reasonable, yet she could no longer make herself trust a White Tower that seemed to be trying to hide her daughter from her. Her letter to the new Amyrlin demanding Elayne’s return—no one demanded anything of an Amyrlin Seat, but she had—that letter was yet unanswered. It had barely had time to reach Tar Valon. In any case, she knew for cold fact that she would not have an Aes Sedai near her. And yet, right alongside that, she could not think of Elayne without a swell of pride. Raised Accepted after so short a time. Elayne might well be the first woman to sit on the throne of Andor as full Aes Sedai, not just Tower trained. It made no sense that she could feel both things at once, but very little made any sense just now. And her daughter would never have the Lion Throne if Morgase did not secure it for her.
“I said no Aes Sedai, Lini, so you might as well stop looking at me like that. This is one time you will not make me take bad-tasting medicine. Besides which, I doubt there is an Aes Sedai of any stripe to be found in Caemlyn.” Her old supporters gone, exiled by her own signature, and maybe her enemies for good over what she had done to Ellorien. New lords and ladies in their places in the Palace. New faces in the Guards. What loyalty remained there? “Would you recognize a Guardsman Lieutenant named Tallanvor, Lini?” At the other woman’s quick nod, she went on. “Find him for me, and bring him here. But do not let him know you are bringing him to me. In fact, tell everyone in the Pensioners’ Quarters that, should anyone ask, I am not here.”
“There is more to this than Gaebril and his women, isn’t there?”
“Just go, Lini. And hurry. There is not much time.” By the shadows she could see in the tree-filled garden through the window, the sun had passed its height. Evening would be there all too soon. Evening, when Gaebril would be looking for her.
When Lini left, Morgase remained in the chair, sitting rigidly. She dared not stand; her knees were stronger now, but she feared that if she began moving she would not stop until she was back in her sitting room, waiting for Gaebril. The urge was that strong, especially now that she was alone. And once he looked at her, once he touched her, she had no doubt that she would forgive him everything. Forget everything, maybe, based on how fuzzy and incomplete her memories were. Had she not known better, she could have thought that he had used the One Power on her in some way, but no man who could channel survived to his age.
Lini had often told her that there was always one man in the world for whom a woman would find herself behaving a brainless fool, but she had never believed that she could succumb. Still, her choices in men had never been good, however right they seemed at the time.
Taringail Damodred she had wed for political reasons. He had been married to Tigraine, the Daughter-Heir whose disappearance had set off the Succession when Mordrellen died. Marrying him had made a link with the old queen, smoothing the doubts of most of her opponents, and more importantly, had maintained the alliance that had ended the ceaseless wars with Cairhien. In such ways did queens choose their husbands. Taringail had been a cold, distant man, and there was never love, despite two wonderful children; it had been almost a relief when he died in a hunting accident.
Thomdril Merrilin, House bard and then Court-bard, had been a joy at first, intelligent and witty, a laughing man who used the tricks of the Game of Houses to aid her to the throne and help strengthen Andor once she had it. He had been twice her age then, yet she might have married him—marriages with commoners were not unheard of in Andor—but he vanished without a word, and her temper got the better of her. She never had learned why he had gone, but it did not matter. When he finally returned she would surely have rescinded the arrest order, but for once instead of softly turning her anger aside he had met her harsh word for harsh word, saying things she could never forgive. Her ears still burned to remember being called a spoiled child and a puppet of Tar Valon. He had actually shaken her, his queen!
Then there had been Gareth Bryne, strong and capable, as bluff as his face and as stubborn as she; he had turned out to be a treasonous fool. He was well out of her life. It seemed years since she had seen him instead of little more than half of one.
And finally Gaebril. The crown to her list of bad choices. At least the others had not tried to supplant her.
Not so many men for one woman’s life, but in another way, too many. Another thing that Lini sometimes said was that men were only good for three things, though very good for those. She had been on the throne before Lini had thought her old enou
gh to tell what the three things were. Perhaps if I’d kept just to the dancing, she thought wryly, I’d not have so much trouble with them.
The shadows in the garden beyond the window had shifted an hour’s worth before Lini returned with young Tallanvor, who went to one knee while she was still shutting the door. “He didn’t want to come with me at first,” she said. “Fifty years ago I suppose I could have shown what you are displaying to the world, and he’d have followed quick enough, but now I must needs use sweet reason.”
Tallanvor turned his head to look up at her sourly. “You threatened to harry me here with a stick if I did not come. You are lucky I wondered what was so important to you, instead of having somebody drag you to the infirmary.” Her stern sniff did not faze him. His acrid gaze turned angry as it shifted to Morgase. “I see your meeting with Gaebril did not go well, my Queen. I had hoped for . . . more.”
He was looking straight at her eyes, but Lini’s comment had made her aware of her dress again. She felt as though glowing arrows were pointing to her exposed bosom. It was an effort to keep her hands calmly in her lap. “You are a sharp lad, Tallanvor. And loyal, I believe, else you would not have come to me with the news of the Two Rivers.”
“I am not a boy,” he snapped, jerking upright where he knelt. “I am a man who has sworn his life in service to his queen.”
She let her temper flare right back at him. “If you are a man, behave as one. Stand, and answer your queen’s questions truthfully. And remember that I am your queen, young Tallanvor. Whatever you think may have happened, I am Queen of Andor.”
“Forgive me, my Queen. I hear and obey.” The words were properly said, if not exactly contrite, but he stood, head high, staring at her as defiantly as ever. Light, the man was as stubborn as Gareth Bryne had ever been.
“How many loyal men are there among the Guards in the Palace? How many will obey their oaths and follow me?”
“I will,” he said quietly, and suddenly all of his anger was gone, though he still stared intently at her face. “For the rest . . . If you wish to find loyal men, you must look to the outlying garrisons, perhaps as far as Whitebridge. Some who were in Caemlyn were sent to Cairhien with the levies, but the rest in the city are Gaebril’s to a man. Their new . . . Their new oath is to throne and law, not the Queen.”
It was worse than she had hoped for, but no more than she had expected, really. Whatever he was, Gaebril was no fool. “Then I must go elsewhere to begin reestablishing my rule.” The Houses would be difficult to rally after the exiles, after Ellorien, but it had to be done. “Gaebril may try to stop me leaving the Palace”—she found a faint memory of trying to leave, twice, and being halted by Gaebril—“so you will procure two horses and wait in the street behind the south stables. I will meet you there, dressed for riding.”
“Too public,” he said. “And too close. Gaebril’s men might recognize you, however you disguised yourself. I know a man. . . . Could you find an inn called The Queen’s Blessing, in the western part of the New City?” The New City was new only in comparison with the Inner City it surrounded.
“I can.” She did not like being opposed, even when it made sense. Bryne had done that, too. It would be a pleasure to show this young man just how well she could disguise herself. It was her habit once a year, though she realized that she had not done it so far this year, to dress as a commoner and walk the streets to feel the pulse of the people. No one had ever recognized her. “But can this man be trusted, young Tallanvor?”
“Basel Gill is as loyal to you as I am myself.” He hesitated, anguish crossing his face then being replaced by anger once more. “Why have you waited so long? You must have known, you must have seen, yet you have waited while Gaebril tightened his hands around Andor’s neck. Why have you waited?”
So. His anger was honestly come by, and it deserved an honest answer. Only she had no answer, certainly not one she could tell him. “It is not your place to question your Queen, young man,” she said with a gentle firmness. “A loyal man, as I know that you are loyal, serves without question.”
He let out a long breath. “I will await you in the stable of The Queen’s Blessing, my Queen.” And with a bow suitable for a state audience, he was gone.
“Why do you keep calling him young?” Lini demanded once the door closed. “It puts his back up. ‘A fool puts a burr under the saddle before she rides.’ ”
“He is young, Lini. Young enough to be my son.”
Lini snorted, and this time there was nothing delicate about it. “He has a few years on Galad, and Galad is too old to be yours. You were playing with dolls when Tallanvor was born, and thinking babes came the same way as dolls.”
Sighing, Morgase wondered if the woman had treated her mother like this. Probably. And if Lini lived long enough to see Elayne on the throne—which somehow she did not doubt, Lini would last forever—she would probably treat Elayne no differently. That was assuming that a throne remained for Elayne to inherit. “The question is, is he as loyal as he seems, Lini? One faithful Guardsman, when every other loyal man in the Palace has been sent away. Suddenly it seems too good to be true.”
“He swore the new oath.” Morgase opened her mouth, but Lini forestalled her. “I saw him afterwards, alone behind the stables. That’s how I knew who you meant; I found out his name. He did not see me. He was on his knees, tears streaming down his face. He alternated apologizing to you and repeating the old oath. Not just to ‘the Queen of Andor,’ but to ‘Queen Morgase of Andor.’ He swore in the old way, on his sword, slicing his arm to show he would shed his last drop before breaking it. I know a thing or two of men, girl. That one will follow you against an army with nothing but his bare hands.”
That was good to know. If she could not trust him, she would have to doubt Lini next. No, never Lini. He had sworn in the old way? That was something for stories, now. And she was letting her thoughts drift again. Surely Gaebril’s clouding of her mind was finished now, with all she knew. Then why did a part of her still want to go back to her sitting room and wait? She had to concentrate. “I will need a simple dress, Lini. One that does not fit too well. A little soot from the fireplace, and . . .”
Lini insisted on coming, too. Morgase would have had to tie her to a chair to leave her behind, and she was not certain that the old woman would have let herself be tied; she had always seemed frail, and had always been far stronger than she seemed.
When they slipped out through a small side gate, Morgase did not look very much like herself. A bit of soot had darkened her red-gold hair, taken its sheen away and made it lank. Sweat rolling down her face helped, as well. No one believed that queens sweated. A shapeless dress of rough—very rough—gray wool, with divided skirts, completed her disguise. Even her shift and stockings were coarse wool. She looked a farm woman who had ridden the cart horse to market and now wanted to see a little of the city. Lini looked herself, straight-backed and no-nonsense, in a green woolen riding dress, well cut but ten years out of fashion.
Wishing she could scratch, Morgase also wished that the other woman had not taken her so to heart about the dress not fitting very well. Stuffing the low-necked gown away under the bed, her old nurse had muttered some saying about displaying wares you did not mean to sell, and when Morgase claimed she had just made it up, her reply was At my age, if I make it up, it’s still an old saying. Morgase more than half-suspected that her itchy, ill-draped dress was punishment for that gown.
The Inner City was built on hills, streets following the natural curve of the land and planned to give sudden views of parks full of trees and monuments, or tile-covered towers glittering a hundred colors in the sun. Sudden rises hurled the eye across Caemlyn entire, to the rolling plains and forests beyond. Morgase saw none of it as she hurried through the crowds thronging the streets. Usually she would have tried to listen to the people, to gauge their mood. This time she heard only the hum and babble of a great city. She had no thought of trying to rouse them. Thousands of men ar
med mainly with stones and rage could overwhelm the Guards in the Royal Palace, but if she had not known it before, the riots in the spring that had brought Gaebril to her attention, and the near riots the year before, had shown what mobs could do. She meant to rule again in Caemlyn, not see it burned.
Beyond the white walls of the Inner City, the New City had its own beauties. Tall slender towers, and domes gleaming white and gold, huge expanses of red-tiled roofs, and the great, towered outer walls, pale gray streaked with silver and white. Broad boulevards, split down the middle by wide expanses of trees and grass, were jammed with people and carriages and wagons. Except to notice in passing that the grass was dying for lack of rain, Morgase kept her mind on what she was hunting.
From the experience of her annual forays, she chose the people she questioned carefully. Men, mostly. She knew how she looked, even with soot in her hair, and some women would give wrong directions from jealousy. Men, on the other hand, racked their brains to be right, to impress her. None with too smug a face, or too rough. The first were often offended at being approached, as though they were not afoot themselves, and the others were likely to think a woman asking directions had something else on her mind.
One fellow with a chin too big for his face, hawking a tray of pins and needles, grinned at her and said, “Did anyone ever tell you you look a mite like the Queen? Whatever mess she’s made of us, she’s a pretty one.”
She gave him a raucous laugh that earned a stern look from Lini. “You save your flattery for your wife. The second turn to the left, you say? I thank you. And for the compliment, too.”
As she pushed on through the crowd, a frown settled on her face. She had heard too much of that. Not that she looked like the Queen, but that Morgase had made a mess of things. Gaebril had raised taxes heavily to pay for his levies, it seemed, but she took the blame, and rightly so. The responsibility was the Queen’s. Other laws had come out of the Palace, as well, laws that made little sense, but did make people’s lives more difficult. She heard whispers about herself, that maybe Andor had had queens long enough. Only murmurs, but what one man dared speak in a low voice, ten thought. Perhaps it would not have been as easy as she had thought to rouse mobs against Gaebril.
The Fires of Heaven Page 37