“Will he come willingly, as Coiren thinks?” Katerine asked.
“Perhaps,” Galina said dryly. “The honor this delegation does him should be enough to make a king carry his throne to Tar Valon on his back.”
Katerine did not bother to nod. “The woman Sevanna will kill him, given a chance.”
“Then she must not be given a chance.” Galina’s voice was cold, her plump mouth tight. “The Amyrlin Seat will not be pleased to have her plans disrupted. And you and I will have days to scream in the dark before we die.”
Drawing her shawl up over her shoulders reflexively, Katerine shuddered. There was dust in the air; she would get out her light cloak. It would not be Elaida’s rage that killed them, though her fury could be terrible. For seventeen years Katerine had been Aes Sedai, but not until the morning before they departed Tar Valon had she learned that she shared more than the Red Ajah with Galina. Twelve years she had been a member of the Black Ajah, never knowing that Galina had too, for far longer. Of necessity Black sisters kept themselves hidden, even from each other. Their rare gatherings were held with faces covered and voices disguised. Before Galina, Katerine had known only two to recognize. Orders were left on her pillow, or in a pocket of her cloak, the ink ready to vanish if any hand but hers touched the paper. She had a secret place to leave messages, and dire orders not to try to see who came to take them. She had never disobeyed. There might be Black sisters among those following a day behind, but she had no way of knowing.
“Why?” she asked. Orders to preserve the Dragon Reborn made no sense, even if they delivered him into Elaida’s hands.
“Questions are dangerous for one sworn to obey without.”
Katerine shuddered again, and barely stopped herself from curtsying. “Yes, Galina Sedai.” But she could not help wondering. Why?
“They show neither respect nor honor,” Therava growled. “They allow us to enter their camp as though we were toothless dogs, then take us out under guard like suspected thieves.”
Sevanna did not look around. She would not until safely back among the trees. The Aes Sedai would be watching for signs of nervousness. “They agreed, Therava,” she said. “That is enough for now.” For now. One day, these lands would be the Shaido’s for the looting. Including the White Tower.
“This is all badly thought out,” the third woman said in a tight voice. “Wise Ones avoid Aes Sedai; it has always been so. Perhaps it was well enough for you, Sevanna — as Couladin’s widow, and Suladric’s, you speak as clan chief until we send another man to Rhuidean — but the rest of us should be no part of it.”
Sevanna barely forced herself to keep walking. Desaine had spoken against her being chosen as a Wise One, speaking loudly about her having served no apprenticeship and paid no visit to Rhuidean, claiming that her place standing for the clan chief disqualified her. Besides, as the widow of not just one, but two dead chiefs, perhaps she carried bad luck. Fortunately, enough of the Shaido Wise Ones had listened to Sevanna, not Desaine. It was unfortunate that Desaine had too many listeners to be safely done away with. Wise Ones were supposed to be inviolate — they even came and went freely among the Shaido from those betrayers and fools down in Cairhien — but Sevanna meant to find a way.
As though Desaine’s doubts had infected Therava, she began muttering, only half to herself. “What is ill done is going against Aes Sedai. We served them before the Breaking, and failed them; that is why we were sent to the Three-fold Land. If we fail them again, we will be destroyed.”
That was what everyone believed; it was part of the old tales, almost part of custom. Sevanna was not so sure. These Aes Sedai looked weak and foolish to her, traveling with a few hundred men for escort through lands where the true Aiel, the Shaido, could smother them with thousands. “A new day has come,” she said sharply, repeating part of one of her speeches to the Wise Ones. “We are no longer bound to the Three-fold Land. Any eye can see that what was, has changed. We must change, or be ended as if we never were.” She had never told them how much change she intended, of course. The Shaido Wise Ones would never send a man to Rhuidean, if she had her way.
“New day or old day,” Desaine grumbled, “what are we to do with Rand al’Thor if we do manage to take him from the Aes Sedai? Better, and easier, to slip a knife between his ribs while they are escorting him north.”
Sevanna did not answer. She did not know what to answer. Not yet. All she knew was that once she had the so-called Car’a’carn, the chief of chiefs of all the Aiel, chained before her tent like a vicious dog, then this land would truly belong to the Shaido. And to her. She had known that even before the strange wetlander man somehow found her in the mountains these people called Kinslayer’s Dagger. He had given her a small cube of some hard stone, intricately carved in strange patterns, and told her what to do with it, with the aid of a Wise One who could channel, once al’Thor was in her hands. She carried it in her belt pouch at all times; she had not decided what to do about it, but so far she had told no one about man or cube. Head high, she walked on beneath that blistering sun in an autumn sky.
The palace garden might have had a semblance of coolness had there been any trees, but the tallest things were fanciful topiary, tortured into the shapes of running horses or bears performing tumblers’ tricks or the like. Shirtsleeved gardeners scurried about with buckets of water beneath the scalding afternoon sun, trying to save their creations. They had given up on the flowers, clearing all the patterned beds and laying them with sod that was dying too.
“A pity the heat is so bad,” Ailron said. Sweeping a lace handkerchief from the lace-fringed sleeve of his yellow silk coat, he dabbed delicately at his face, then tossed it aside. A servant in gold-and-red livery quickly snatched it from the graveled walk and faded into the background again: another liveried man laid a fresh replacement in the King’s hand to be tucked up his sleeve. Ailron did not acknowledge it, of course, or even appear to notice. “These fellows usually manage to keep everything alive till spring, but I may lose a few this winter. Since it doesn’t seem as if we’ll have any winter. They take cold better than drought. Don’t you think they’re very fine, my dear?”
Ailron, Anointed by the Light, King and Defender of Amadicia, Guardian of the Southern Gate, was not as handsome as rumor made him, but then, Morgase had suspected when she first met him, years ago, that he might be the source of those rumors himself. His dark hair was full and wavy — and quite definitely receding in front. His nose was a bit too long, his ears a touch too big. His whole face vaguely suggested softness. One day she would have to ask. The Southern Gate to what?
Working her carved ivory fan, she eyed one of the gardeners’ . . . constructs. It seemed to be three huge nude women wrestling desperately with gigantic serpents. “They are quite remarkable,” she said. One said what one must when coming as a beggar.
“Yes. Yes, aren’t they? Ah, it looks as if affairs of state call me. Pressing matters, I fear.” A dozen men, coated as colorfully as the flowers that were no longer there, had appeared on the short marble stair at the far end of the walk and were waiting in front of a dozen fluted columns that supported nothing. “Until this evening, my dear. We will speak further of your dreadful problems, and what I can do.”
He bowed over her hand, stopping just short of kissing it, and she curtsied slightly, murmuring appropriate inanities, and then he swept away, followed by all but one of the coterie of servants that had been trailing them everywhere.
With him gone, Morgase worked the fan harder than she could in his presence — the man pretended the heat barely touched him, with sweat streaming down his face — and turned back toward her apartments. Hers by sufferance, just as the pale blue gown she wore was a gift. She had insisted on the high neck despite the weather; she had definite ideas about low necklines.
The lone serving man followed behind her, at a short distance. And Tallanvor, of course, on her heels and still insisting on wearing the rough green coat he had traveled here in, sw
ord on his hip as though he expected an attack in the Seranda Palace, not two miles from Amador. She tried to ignore the tall young man, but as usual, he would not be ignored.
“We should have gone to Ghealdan, Morgase. To Jehannah.”
She had let some things go on far too long. Her skirts swished as she whirled to confront him, and her eyes blazed. “On our journey, certain discretions were necessary, but those around us now know who I am. You will remember that too, and show proper respect for your Queen. On your knees!”
To her shock, he did not move. “Are you my Queen, Morgase?” At least he lowered his voice so the servant could not overhear and spread it about, but his eyes . . . She very nearly backed away from the stark desire there. And the anger. “I will not abandon you this side of death, Morgase, but you abandoned much when you abandoned Andor to Gaebril. When you find it again, I will kneel at your feet, and you can strike off my head if you choose, but until then . . . We should have gone to Ghealdan.”
The young fool would have been willing to die fighting the usurper even after she discovered that no House in Andor would support her, and day by day, week by week since she had decided her only choice was to seek foreign aid, he had grown more insolent and insubordinate. She could ask Ailron for Tallanvor’s head, and receive it with no questions asked. But just because they were unasked did not mean they would be unthought. She truly was a beggar here, and could not afford to ask one favor more than absolutely necessary. Besides, without Tallanvor, she would not be here. She would be a prisoner — worse than a prisoner — to Lord Gaebril. Those were the only reasons Tallanvor would keep his head.
Her army guarded the ornately carved doors to her apartments. Basel Gill was a pink-cheeked man with graying hair combed vainly back over a bald spot. His leather jerkin, sewn with steel discs, strained around his girth, and he wore a sword he had not touched in twenty years before belting it on to follow her. Lamgwin was bulky and hard, though heavy-lidded eyes made him look half-asleep. He wore a sword too, but the scars on his face and a nose broken more than once made it plain he was used to employing fists, or a cudgel. An innkeeper and a street tough; aside from Tallanvor, that was the army she had so far to take back Andor and her throne from Gaebril.
The pair were all awkward bows, but she glided past and slammed the door in Tallanvor’s face. “The world,” she announced in a growl, “would be a far better place without men.”
“An emptier place, certainly,” Morgase’s old nurse said from her chair beside a velvet-draped anteroom window. With her head bent over her embroidery hoop, Lini’s gray bun waggled in the air. A reed-thin woman, she was not nearly so frail as she looked. “I assume Ailron was no more forthcoming today? Or is it Tallanvor, child? You must learn not to let men put you in a fret. Fretting makes your face blotchy.” Lini still would not admit that she was out of the nursery, despite having been nurse to Morgase’s daughter in turn.
“Ailron was charming,” Morgase said carefully. The third woman in the room, on her knees taking folded bedsheets from a chest, sniffed loudly, and Morgase avoided glaring at her with an effort. Breane was Lamgwin’s . . . companion. The short suntanned woman followed where he went, but she was Cairhienin, and Morgase was no queen of hers, as she made clear. “Another day or two,” Morgase continued, “and I think I will get a pledge from him. Today, he finally agreed I need soldiers from outside to retake Caemlyn. Once Gaebril is driven from Caemlyn, the nobles will flock to me once more.” She hoped they would; she was in Amadicia because she had let Gaebril blind her, had mistreated even her oldest friends among the Houses at his behest.
“’A slow horse does not always reach the end of the journey,’” Lini quoted, still intent on her embroidery. She was very fond of old sayings, some of which Morgase suspected her of making up on the spot.
“This one will,” Morgase insisted. Tallanvor was wrong about Ghealdan; according to Ailron, that country was in near anarchy because of this Prophet all the servants whispered about, the fellow preaching the Rebirth of the Dragon. “I would like some punch, Breane.” The woman only looked at her until she added, “If you please.” Even then she set about the pouring with a wooden sulkiness.
The mixture of wine and fruit juices was iced, and refreshing in the heat; the silver goblet felt good against Morgase’s forehead. Ailron had snow and ice brought down from the Mountains of Mist, though it took nearly a steady stream of wagons to provide enough for the palace.
Lini took a goblet, too. “Concerning Tallanvor,” she began after a sip.
“Leave over, Lini!” Morgase snapped.
“So he is younger than you,” Breane said. She had poured for herself, as well. The effrontery of the woman! She was supposed to be a servant, whatever she had been in Cairhien. “If you want him, take him. Lamgwin says he is sworn to you, and I have seen him look at you.” She laughed huskily. “He will not refuse.” Cairhienin were disgusting, but at least most of them kept their dissolute ways decently hidden.
Morgase was about to order her from the room when a knock came at the door. Without waiting permission, a white haired man who looked all sinew and bone entered. His snowy cloak was emblazoned with a flaring golden sun on the breast. She had hoped to avoid Whitecloaks until she had Ailron’s seal on a firm agreement. The chill of the wine abruptly passed straight into her bones. Where were Tallanvor and the others, that he had walked right in?
Dark eyes going straight to her, he made the most minimal of bows. His face was aged, the skin drawn tight, but this man was as feeble as a hammer. “Morgase of Andor?” he said in a firm deep voice. “I am Pedron Niall.” Not just any Whitecloak; the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light himself. “Do not fear. I have not come to arrest you.”
Morgase held herself straight. “Arrest me? On what charge? I cannot channel.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she nearly clicked her tongue in exasperation. She should not have mentioned channeling; that she had put herself on the defensive was an indication of how flustered she was. It was true, what she had said, so far as it went. Fifty times trying to sense the True Source to find it once, and when found, twenty times attempting to open herself to saidar in order to catch a dribble once. A Brown sister named Verin had told her that there was hardly any need for the Tower to hold her until she learned to handle her tiny ability safely. The Tower did anyway, of course. Still, even that much ability to channel was outlawed in Amadicia, the penalty death. The Great Serpent ring on her hand that so fascinated Ailron now seemed hot enough to glow.
“Tower trained,” Niall murmured. “That is forbidden, as well. But as I said, I come not to arrest, but to help. Send your women away, and we will talk.” He made himself at home, taking a tall padded armchair and flipping his cloak over the back. “I will have some of that punch before they go.” To Morgase’s displeasure, Breane brought him a goblet immediately, eyes down and face as expressionless as a board.
Morgase made an effort to take back control. “They stay, Master Niall.” She would not give this man the satisfaction of a title. The lack did not appear to faze him. “What has happened to my men outside? I will hold it against you if they’ve been harmed. And why do you think I need your help?”
“Your men are uninjured,” he said dismissively over his punch. “Do you think Ailron will give you what you need? You are a beautiful woman, Morgase, and Ailron prizes women with sun-gold hair. He will come a little closer each day to the agreement you seek, never quite reaching it, until you decide that perhaps, with . . . a certain sacrifice, he will yield also. But he will come no nearer what you want, whatever you give. This so-called Prophet’s mobs ravage the north of Amadicia. To the west lies Tarabon, with a ten-sided civil war, brigands sworn to the so-called Dragon Reborn, and rumors of Aes Sedai and the false Dragon himself to frighten Ailron. Give you soldiers? Could he find ten men for every one he has under arms now, or even two, he would mortgage his soul. But I can send five thousand Children of the Light riding to Caem
lyn with you at their head if you but ask.”
To say she was stunned would have been to minimize Morgase’s feeling. She made her way to a chair across from him with, a proper stateliness, and sat down before her legs gave way. “Why would you want to help me oust Gaebril?” she demanded. Obviously he knew everything; no doubt he had spies among Ailron’s servants. “I’ve never given the Whitecloaks the free rein they want in Andor.”
This time he grimaced. Whitecloaks did not like that name. “Gaebril? Your lover is dead, Morgase. The false Dragon Rand al’Thor has added Caemlyn to his conquests.” Lini made a faint noise as if she had pricked herself, but he kept his eyes on Morgase.
For herself, Morgase had to grip the arm of her chair to keep from pressing a hand against her stomach. If her other hand had not been resting the goblet on the other chair arm, she would have slopped punch onto the carpet. Gaebril dead? He had gulled her, turned her into his doxy, usurped her authority, oppressed the land in her name, and finally named himself King of Andor, which had never had a king. How, after all that, could there possibly be this faint regret that she would never feel his hands again? It was madness; if she had not known it was impossible, she would have believed he had used the One Power on her in some way.
But al’Thor had Caemlyn now? That might change everything. She had met him once, a frightened country youth from the west trying his best to show proper respect for his queen. But a youth carrying the heron-mark sword of a blademaster. And Elaida had been wary of him. “Why do you call him a false Dragon, Niall?” If he intended to call her by name, he could do without even a commoner’s “master.” “The Stone of Tear has fallen, as the Prophecies of the Dragon said. The High Lords of Tear themselves have acclaimed him the Dragon Reborn.”
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