WOT Prequel 02 - New Spring

by New Spring [lit]

outstretched hand in both of hers . . . and heaved with all of her might.

  Ignoring icy water tickling down your ribs was not easy, and if she was wet, so

  would he be, and without any need to use the —

  He straightened, raised his arm, and she came out of the water dangling from his

  hand. In consternation she stared at him until her feet touched the ground and

  he backed away.

  "I'll start a fire and hang up blankets so you can dry yourself," he murmured,

  still not meeting her gaze.

  He was as good as his word, and by the time the other men appeared, she was

  standing beside a small fire surrounded by blankets dug from his packsaddles and

  hung from branches. She had no need of the fire for drying, of course, or the

  privacy. The proper weave of Water had taken every drop from her hair and

  clothes while she stayed in them. As well he did not see that, though. And she

  did appreciate the flames' warmth. Anyway, she had to stay inside the blankets

  long enough for the man to think she had used the fire as he intended. She very

  definitely held on to saidar.

  The other men arrived, full of questions about whether "she" had followed into

  the woods. They had known? Men watched for bandits in these times, but they had

  noticed a lone woman and decided she was following them? It seemed suspicious.

  "A Cairhienin, Lan? I suppose you've seen a Cairhienin in her skin, but I never

  have." That certainly caught her ear, and with the Power filling her, so did

  another sound. Steel whispering on leather. A sword leaving its sheath.

  Preparing several weaves that would stop the lot of them in their tracks, she

  made a crack in the blankets to peek out.

  To her surprise, the man who had dunked her — Lan? — stood with his back to her

  blankets. He was the one with sword in hand. The Arafellin, facing him, looked

  surprised. "You remember the sight of the Thousand Lakes, Ryne," Lan said

  coldly. "Does a woman need protection from your eyes?"

  For a moment, she thought Ryne was going to draw despite the blade already in

  Lan's hand, but the older man, a much battered, greying fellow though as tall as

  the others, calmed matters, took the other two a little distance away with talk

  of some game called "sevens". A strange game it seemed to be. Lan and Ryne sat

  crosslegged facing one another, their swords sheathed, then without warning

  drew, each blade flashing towards the other man's throat, stopping just short of

  flesh. The older man pointed to Ryne, they sheathed swords, and then did it

  again. For as long as she watched, that was how it went. Perhaps Ryne had not

  been as over-confident as he seemed.

  Waiting inside the blankets, she tried to recall what she had been taught of

  Malkier. Not a great deal, except as history. Ryne remembered the Thousand

  Lakes, so he must be Malkieri, too. There had been something about distressed

  women. Now that she was with them, she might as well stay until she learned what

  she could.

  When she came out from behind the blankets, she was ready. "I claim the right of

  a woman alone," she told them formally. "I travel to Chachin, and I ask the

  shelter of your swords." She also pressed a fat silver coin into each man's

  hand. She was not really sure about this ridiculous "woman alone" business, but

  silver caught most men's attention. "And two more each, paid in Chachin."

  The reactions were not what she expected. Ryne glared at the coin as he turned

  it over in his fingers. Lan looked at his without expression and tucked it into

  his coat pocket with a grunt. She had given them some of her last Tar Valon

  marks, she realized, but Tar Valon coins could be found anywhere, along with

  those of every other land.

  Bukama, the grizzled man, bowed with his left hand on his knee. "Honour to

  serve, my Lady," he said. "To Chachin, my life above yours." His eyes were also

  blue, and they, too, would not quite meet hers. She hoped he did not turn out to

  be a Darkfriend.

  Learning anything proved to be difficult. Impossible. First the men were busy

  setting up camp, tending the horses, making a larger fire. They did not seem

  eager to face a new spring night without that. Bukama and Lan barely said a word

  over a dinner of flatbread and dried meat that she tried not to wolf down. Her

  stomach remembered all too well that she had not eaten that day. Ryne talked and

  was quite charming, really, with a dimple in his cheek when he smiled, and a

  sparkle in his blue eyes, but he gave no opening for her to mention The Gates of

  Heaven or Aes Sedai. When she finally enquired why he was going to Chachin, his

  face turned sad.

  "Every man has to die somewhere," he said softly, and went off to make up his

  blankets.

  Lan took the first watch, sitting crosslegged not far from Ryne, and when Bukama

  doused the fire and rolled himself up in his blankets near Lan, she wove a ward

  of Spirit around each man. Flows of Spirit she could hold on to sleeping, and if

  any of them moved in the night, the ward would wake her without alerting them.

  It meant waking every time they changed guard, but there was nothing for it. Her

  own blankets lay well away from the men, and as she was lying down, Bukama

  murmured something she could not catch. She heard Lan's reply plainly enough.

  "I'd sooner trust an Aes Sedai, Bukama. Go to sleep."

  All the anger she had tamped down flared up. The man threw her into an icy pond,

  he did not apologize, he . . . ! She channelled, Air and Water weaving with a

  touch of Earth. A thick cylinder of water rose from the surface of the pond,

  stretching up and up in the moonlight, arching over. Crashing down on the fool

  who was so free with his tongue!

  Bukama and Ryne bounded to their feet with oaths, but she continued the torrent

  for a count of ten before letting it end. Freed water splashed down across the

  campsite. She expected to see a sodden, half-frozen man ready to learn proper

  respect. He was dripping wet, a few small fish flopping around his feet. He was

  standing on his feet. With his sword out.

  "Shadowspawn?" Ryne said in a disbelieving tone, and atop him, Lan said, "Maybe!

  Guard the woman, Ryne! Bukama, take west; I'll take east!"

  "Not Shadowspawn!" Moiraine snapped, stopping them in their tracks. They stared

  at her. She wished she could see their expressions better in the moonshadows,

  but those cloud-shifting shadows aided her, too, cloaking her in mystery. With

  an effort she gave her voice every bit of cool Aes Sedai serenity she could

  muster. "It is unwise to show anything except respect to an Aes Sedai, Master

  Lan."

  "Aes Sedai?" Ryne whispered. Despite the dim light, the awe on his face was

  clear. Or maybe it was fear.

  No one else made a sound, except for Bukama's grumbles as he shifted his bed

  away from the mud. Ryne spent a long time moving his blankets in silence, giving

  her small bows whenever she glanced his way. Lan made no attempt to dry off. He

  started to choose a new spot for his watch, then stopped and sat back where he

  had been, in the mud and water. She might have thought it a gesture of humility,

  only he glanced at her, very nearly meeting her eyes this time. If that was

  h
umility, kings were the most humble men on earth.

  She wove her wards around them again, of course. If anything, revealing herself

  only made it more necessary. She did not go to sleep for quite a while, though.

  She had a great deal to think about. For one thing, none of the men had asked

  why she was following them. The man had been on his feet! When she drifted off,

  she was thinking of Ryne, strangely. A pity if he was afraid of her, now. He was

  charming, and she did not mind a man wanting to see her unclothed, only his

  telling others about it.

  Lan knew the ride to Chachin would be one he would rather forget, and it met his

  expectations. It stormed twice, freezing rain mixed with ice, and that was the

  least. Bukama was angry that he refused to make proper pledge to the diminutive

  woman who claimed to be Aes Sedai, but Bukama knew the reasons and did not

  press. He only grumbled whenever he thought Lan could hear; Aes Sedai or not, a

  decent man followed certain forms. As if he did not share Lan's reasons. Ryne

  twitched and peered wide-eyed at her, fetched and trotted and offered up

  compliments on "skin of snowy silk" and the "deep, dark pools of her eyes" like

  a courtier on a leash. He seemed unable to decide between besotted and

  terrified, and he let her see both. That would have been bad enough, but Ryne

  was right; Lan had seen a Cairhienin in her skin, more than one, and they had

  all tried to mesh him in a scheme, or two, or three. Over one particularly

  memorable ten days in the south of Cairhien, he had almost been killed six times

  and nearly married twice. A Cairhienin and an Aes Sedai? There could be no worse

  combination.

  This Alys — she told them to call her Alys, which he doubted as much as the

  Great Serpent ring she produced, especially after she tucked it back into her

  beltpouch and said no one must know she was Aes Sedai — this "Alys" had a

  temper. Normally, he did not mind that, cold or hot, in man or woman. Hers was

  ice. That first night he had sat in the wet to let her know he would accept what

  she had done. If they were to travel together, better to end it with honours

  even, as she must see it. Except that she did not.

  They rode hard, never stopping long in a village and sleeping under the stars

  most nights, since no one had the coin for inns, not for four people with

  horses. He slept when he could. The second night she remained awake till dawn

  and made sure he did as well, with sharp flicks of an invisible switch whenever

  he nodded off. The third night, sand somehow got inside his clothes and boots, a

  thick coating of it. He had shaken out what he could and ridden covered in grit

  the next day. The fourth night . . . He could not understand how she managed to

  make ants crawl into his smallclothes, or make them all bite at once. It had

  been her doing for sure. She was standing over him when his eyes shot open, and

  she seemed surprised that he did not cry out. Clearly, she wanted some response,

  some reaction, but he could not see what. Surely not the pledge of protection.

  Bukama's sufficed, and besides, she had given them money. The woman did not know

  insult when she offered it.

  When they had first seen her behind them, outpacing the merchant trains and the

  shield of their guards, Bukama had offered a reason for a woman alone to follow

  three men. If six swordsmen could not kill a man in daylight, perhaps one woman

  could in darkness. Bukama had not mentioned Edeyn, of course. In truth, it

  plainly could not be that, or he would be dead instead of uncomfortable, yet

  Alys herself never made any explanation, however much Bukama waited for one.

  Edeyn might set a woman to watch him, thinking he would be less on his guard. So

  Lan watched her. But the only suspicious thing he saw, if it could be called

  that, was that she asked questions whenever they came to a village, always away

  from him and the others, and she went silent if they came too near. Two days

  from Canluum, she stopped asking, though. Perhaps she had found an answer in the

  market village called Ravinda, but if so, she did not seem happy about it. That

  night she discovered a patch of blisterleaf near their campsite, and to his

  shame, he almost lost his temper.

  If Canluum was a city of hills, Chachin was a city of mountains. The three

  highest rose almost a mile even with their peaks sheared off short, and all

  glittered in the sun with colourful glazed tile roofs and tile-covered palaces.

  Atop the tallest of those the Aesdaishar Palace shone brighter than any other in

  red and green, the prancing Red Horse flying above its largest dome. Three

  towered ringwalls surrounded the city, as did a deep dry moat a hundred paces

  wide spanned by two dozen bridges, each with a fortress hulking at its mouth.

  The traffic was too great here, and the Blight too far away, for the guards with

  the Red Horse on their chests to be so diligent as in Canluum, but crossing the

  Bridge of Sunrise amid tides of wagons and people flowing both ways still took

  some little while. Once inside, Lan wasted no time drawing rein.

  "We are within the walls of Chachin," he told the woman. "The pledge has been

  kept. Keep your coin," he added coldly when she reached for her purse.

  Ryne immediately started going on about giving offence to Aes Sedai and offering

  her smiling apologies, while Bukama rumbled about men with the manners of pigs.

  The woman herself gazed at Lan with so little expression, she might even have

  been what she claimed. A dangerous claim if untrue. And if true . . .

  Whirling Cat Dancer, he galloped up the street scattering people afoot and some

  mounted. Bukama and Ryne caught him up before he was halfway up the mountain to

  the Aesdaishar. If Edeyn was in Chachin, she would be there. Wisely, Bukama and

  Ryne held their silence.

  The palace filled the flattened mountaintop completely, an immense, shining

  structure of domes and high balconies covering fifty hides, a small city to

  itself. The great bronze gates, worked with the Red Horse, stood open beneath a

  red-tiled arch, and once Lan identified himself — as Lan Mandragoran, not al'Lan

  — the guards' stiffness turned to smiling bows. Servants in red-and-green came

  running to take the horses and show each man to rooms befitting his station.

  Bukama and Ryne each received a small room above one of the barracks. Lan was

  given three rooms draped in silk tapestries, with a bedchamber that overlooked

  one of the palace gardens, two square-faced serving women to tend him, and a

  lanky young fellow to run errands.

  A little careful questioning of the servants brought answers. Queen Ethenielle

  was making a progress through the heartland, but Brys, the Prince Consort, was

  in residence. As was the Lady Edeyn Arrel. The women smiled when they said that;

  they had known what he wanted from the first.

  He washed himself, but let the women dress him. just because they were servants

  was no reason to insult them. He had one white silk shirt that did not show too

  much wear, and a good black silk coat embroidered along the sleeves with golden

  bloodroses among their hooked thorns. Bloodroses for loss and remembrance. Then

  he set the women outside to guard his door and sat to
wait. His meetings with

  Edeyn must be public, with as many people around as possible.

  A summons came from her, to her chambers, which he ignored. Courtesy demanded he

  be given time to rest from his journey, yet it seemed a very long time before

  the invitation to join Brys came, brought by the shatayan. A stately, greying

  woman with a presence to match any queen, she had charge of all the palace

  servants, and it was an honour to be conducted by her personally. Outsiders

  needed a guide to find their way anywhere in the palace. His sword remained on

  the lacquered rack by the door. It would do him no good here, and would insult

  Brys besides, indicating he thought he needed to protect himself.

  He expected a private meeting first, but the shatayan took him to a columned

  hall full of people. Soft-footed servants moved through the crowd offering

  spiced wine to Kandori lords and ladies in silks embroidered with House sigils,

  and folk in fine woollens worked with the sigils of the more important guilds.

  And to others, too. Lan saw men wearing the hadori he knew had not worn it these

  ten years or more. Women with hair still cut at the shoulders and higher wore

  the small dot of the ki'sain painted on their foreheads. They bowed at his

  appearance, and made deep curtsies, those men and women who had decided to

  remember Malkier.

  Prince Brys was a stocky, rough-hewn man in his middle years who looked more

  suited to armour than his green silks, though in truth he was accustomed to

  either. Brys was Ethenielle's Swordbearer, the general of her armies, as well as

  her consort. He caught Lan's shoulders, refusing to allow him to bow.

  "None of that from the man who twice saved my life in the Blight, Lan." Brys

  laughed. "Besides, your coming seems to have rubbed some of your luck off on

  Diryk. He fell from a balcony this morning, a good fifty feet, without breaking

  a bone." He motioned his second son, a handsome dark-eyed boy of eight in a coat

  like his, to come forward. A large bruise marred the side of the boy's head, and

  he moved with the stiffness of other bruises, but he made a formal bow spoiled

  only somewhat by a wide grin. "He should be at his lessons," Brys confided, "but

  he was so eager to meet you, he'd have forgotten his letters and cut himself on

  a sword." Frowning, the boy protested that he would never cut himself.